


Thalassocracy

by tripodion



Category: La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (but one that needs quite a bit of work), Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Dark Magic, Established Relationship, Existential Angst, Investigations, M/M, Murder, Occult, Vamp!lock, Vampires, Venezia | Venice, sweet sweet angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-11-15 06:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18068336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripodion/pseuds/tripodion
Summary: "Before me things create were none, save thingsEternal, and eternal I shall endure.All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto IIIVenice, 1854. A series of brutal murders draws Sherlock and John into a mysterious occult convent that reveals much more about their kind—and themselves—than they thought possible.





	1. Circle I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> "Let us go on, for the long way impels us.  
> Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter  
> The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.
> 
> There, as it seemed to me from listening,  
> Were lamentations none, but only sighs,  
> That tremble made the everlasting air."
> 
> Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto IV  
> 

_French Riviera, 1854_

A letter had come—there had been a death in Venice, one quite curious and rather auspicious.

It wasn’t much trouble to make the journey; they had been living in the southeast of France, holed away in a tiny and utterly inconspicuous town on the Riviera. Their nights were spent wandering the citrus groves, the beaches; their shadows passed through the sloping tiers of buildings, pale and stuccoed sorbets of melon and orange, perched together on the port before the wide, dark sea as it sparkled under the moonlight, the palms waving in the breeze.

They had been ghosts in Norway, and they were ghosts now, although of an entirely different kind. They would wake together in their tiny rooms as the sun fell through the sky, staring at each other silently as they worked at their connection, passing over it the way a jeweler holds a rare and particular brilliant, making sure to catch the light at every angle, detangling each snag and knot slowly; then they would wash and dress one by one, watching each other by the light of the oil lamp. When night was a certainty, dimmed behind the thick curtains, they would go out.

The streets were often more empty than not, the bells of the basilica signalling the dinner hour. They were ghosts, ghosts because their world was one apart, separated by an inaccessible chasm and unavoidable fact. Perhaps that was their problem, that they had always been ghosts, and had never admitted it, never talked about it, never said a word. Those who weren’t could never know, would never believe them, and those who were, were never seen in the daytime. No—ghosts, ghouls, monsters—they were creatures of the night, a tale told to children to get them to stay in their beds. Their kind was realer; more than a shadow on the wall.

Word spread quickly around town about the foreign visitors, and although no one quite seemed to trust them, they were left to their own desires; once Sherlock had managed to solve the rather simple crime of a trussed-up goose and a missing gemstone, their reception was much warmer. Some evenings he would rise early and open their salon to whatever wayward visitor or potential patron might ring, and John would come later, prepare the tea service, and sit quietly as he watched Sherlock work, peeling apart the lowly, sundry drama of pastoral life.

As a mediator between the villagers and the pedestal they had placed his husband on, John was quick to recognize the early signs of his mate in crisis; the furious research, the mania of a case, followed by the long, still silences, the frustration of unfulfillment, so obvious now that he’d seen the worst of it in Norway.

After the newest affairs were parsed out and the latest misplaced jewelry found, he could tell Sherlock was one missing-wife-run-off-with-the-maid case away from tearing his eyes out just to have something interesting happen, for neither aristocrat nor charwoman offered anything to appease his attention, and when he watched Sherlock take audience after audience in their cramped little salon with the heavy curtains drawn, John was rather reminded of a large cat lying supine in the sun, trading an active mind for comfort, feeding from morsels and growing fat under their deficient succor.

Upon the letter’s arrival, they needed no prompting to pack up their things and find the first night coach available.

The journey up the coast took the better part of the day, and the two, hemmed into the darkness and the rocking, said little, more comfortable in silence than small talk. Sherlock sat opposite, an intense look of concentration settling over his face as he stared at his mate. John ignored him, slowly flipping through his book until he couldn’t stand the feeling any longer; an irritating feeling, like a new bruise being poked at.

“Stop it.”

“I believe it was you who told me it was good to practice.” His husband muttered.

John frowned. “There’s a difference between practicing out of necessity and practicing out of boredom.”

Silence—then a feeling along the back of his neck, like hairs rising; a hand gliding over feathers, brushing the quills against their grain.

He shut his book, choosing to ignore the grin on his mate’s face.

“Sherlock.”

“Please, no interruptions. I’m _practicing_.”

The sensation warmed, a comfortable presence as it spread outwardly; the way it flexed, like a muscle stretching after rest, and then the way it felt, a caress and a reminder at once.

“ _Sherlock_.”

It faded at his tone, and he knew that no matter what his mate may claim, he was not immune to holding the feelings of others to consideration.

But they both recognized that it was more than that, more than a minor irritant, more than just something to pass the time while traveling.

“Thank you.” He said quietly, returning to his book. Sherlock turned his head and stared out the window.

*   *   *

“ _He can’t go backwards. You’ll never have him back the way you did before_ …”

The ocean was beautiful in the distance, sparkling in and out in magnificent shades of blue, and John still wouldn’t let him touch him, hadn’t allowed him to since just after Shanghai, nearly fifteen bloody years ago, and even that had been a half-hearted, quickly aborted attempt, one best left forgotten to time.

In a sense, he didn’t mind; the bond was still untouched, as strong as it ever was, and that was what was important. John still maintained it, kept it open. John _wanted_ it—that was what mattered. He could operate off thousands of memories of them together, bare fingers, bare hands, the heightened sensitivity, the breath that wasn’t breath.

And yet…John wouldn’t allow it. He knew it was because of the great transgression, the Norway fiasco, when he had reacted without thinking, imagining John, wanting her to be John, John, who had stopped talking to him, who had nothing of himself that he wanted to share anymore, who had turned away and let their bond trickle to next to nothing, leaving him no choice but to seal it off in a dramatic, impulsive act of cauterization. It had been like being handcuffed to a brick wall; the words had stopped coming, and the praise, and the appreciation, no more smiles, no laughter, all the brightness washing out of the world – John had not been the only one to suffer. He had suffered too, in his own way.

This was their punishment then: a stalemate. John did not want to go forward. He wanted to withhold something he had complete control over, without ceding any ground. Sherlock understood, and had reacted in a way that many who knew him wouldn’t have ever believed: he obeyed.

After John had found him in Shanghai, he had done what he had promised to do, and quit the poppy blood, the dark smoky dens, the hiding and the concealment in a life of shadow and guilt. They had wandered the continent, and he had _tried_. He had persisted in initiating contact, if only to see where the boundaries lay; he tried in tiny apartments, in palazzos, forest dachas, in flat fields under the stars, and each time John had allowed it to progress, then suddenly stopped completely, each time more baffling than the next because Sherlock _knew_ he wanted to continue. He was certain.

He didn’t think it was intentional, but he also knew John was no fool lacking the finer points of introspection; John was aware of the issue. His gloves had stayed on for the better part of a decade—he knew, without a doubt.

Mostly, it hadn’t mattered. It really hadn’t. John had stayed, and his presence was something Sherlock would sacrifice many things for. Their relationship had needed far more attention elsewhere, and by the time his body had caught up to them, they already hadn’t slept together in nearly a decade. If he was honest, he could pinpoint their last time together down to the hour, in that lonely manse in Norway, but it was an event he was rather ashamed of, ashamed of the way they had used each other, selfishly, without love.

He was happy enough with how things were, sex be damned. If it meant not snapping their tenuous peace, if it meant they might not go forward but they certainly weren’t going backwards, then so be it.

He could wait.

*   *   *

_Contrada dell’unione, Venice, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia_

The body had been found just past dawn. The Jewish quarter was on high alert—there had already been four before this, found on the outskirts in alleyways, rooftops, slumped against the sottoportegos. They feared they were the natural suspects; Spanish, Italian, Ashkenazi, Roman, it made no difference. The were the other, foreign, outsiders.

The scene had been partitioned on either end by members of the night watch. The guard was merely a precaution, for the surrounding canals and streets of the ghetto were empty. Citizens peered tentatively out from windows and balconies, hesitant to be the first the question eye of the city fell on.

Sherlock ignored them. Let them watch, or hide, it was no business of his, for he'd already had an idea of the true culprit since the first report, and they were no Jew nor Christian, nor even member of the human race.

Completely exsanguinated. Almost five litres of blood in all. They were young, then, or greedy, or both. Either way they were dangerous. The general populace of Venezia would dwindle, one by one, until none were left, that was to be sure. It had happened before, in little-missed miserable communes, in ruined mountain villas, in the lost colonies of the new continent, gone as soon as they were established.

John was speaking with the attending doctor, who had quickly thrown a cloak over his nightclothes after he was called from his bed. As the old man stooped to motion to the bloody, gaping hole where the man's throat had once been, indicating the direction of the slice that had led to his untimely demise, their eyes met. Their bond trilled with a faint, warbling tremor. For a moment, everything was as it had been: himself and John, hounds scenting blood in the air. He hungered then, for the night, for its secrets, the unknown quantities it was hiding from them.

The game was on.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes then stood, straightening up to scan the surrounding rooftops.

"Where is the nearest canal?"

*   *   *

A small crowd had clustered on one side of the Ponte delle Guglie, dark figures leaning over the railing. A triumphant shout sounded. and a call went out to raise the nets that filtered the sea green Lido waters.

There it was: the straight razor, the small bowl to funnel the blood, the stained rags that cleaned the aftermath, all bundled together in a wet tangle. Sloppy. He was almost disappointed.

But the tools meant there was a process being followed, and one that was more or less working. At the very least, whoever it was had avoided capture thus far.

John stood beside him as the captain of the night guard ordered the net lowered again,.

"They won't find anything."

"No," John agreed, as pleasantly as if they'd been chatting about the certainty of a coming storm.

"Did you feel it? Earlier?"

He didn't need to elaborate. As he waited for his mate's answer, a low feeling coiled within him, cold, remnants of fear he'd tried to forget. Not so long ago, he would have said it was a natural response of the human condition, some lowly biological holdover he’d attempted to put behind him, explain away without a second thought. Now, when he had something he cared about losing, he wasn't so sure.

John stared at him for a moment, then looked away.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

*   *   *

The Biblioteca Marciana had stood already for more than three centuries, its horned, whitewashed crown of statues peeking over the horizon at a distance.

John waited beneath one of the arcades, form shadowed by the flickering oil lamps. He sighed, watching boats passing against the night, just past the balustrade, so close he might reach out and touch them. Something within him loved the water, the immediate presence of it, it’s depth, the rhythm as it came forward, then back. It was a constant, something he felt lucky to bear witness to, no matter how much time had passed. This water was blue, not quite as clear as the southern seas, where the Aegan, water was so blue you could lose yourself completely, so blue it matched his eyes, there in the night, half-drunk, half-daring you both to jump off the cliffside and surrender to it, because you could, you could survive it, survive him –

“Come along, John.”

He snapped out of his thoughts, but Sherlock was already gone, heading back inside. And what else could he do, but follow.

*   *   *

Of all the things he’d assumed they would be doing in Venice, breaking into the library hadn’t factored into the list quite yet.

“Did you know, John, that every printer in the Republic must send a copy of their work here? Their manuscript collections are astounding—Greek, Latin, Oriental…they even have a copy of the Iliad from the fifth century somewhere…”

“Fascinating.” John answered, watching absentmindedly as Sherlock rifled through the stacks, scanning the unbroken seals on rolls of bundled yellow parchment.

Suddenly, the movement stopped, and Sherlock’s curly hair, matted in dust, appeared.

“Are you having a good time?”

“‘Am I having a good time?’” John frowned.

“Well, at least we know your ears still work.”

“I think that may be the first time you’ve asked me that in two hundred years.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Sherlock scowled, “It can’t have been over a century yet.”

“We can have this conversation later.”

“The watch won’t even be aware of what’s hit them until well into tomorrow morning.” He huffed, then, as if to make a point, set all his gathered tomes and sheaves of parchment on the table so hard John imagined it would buckle under the sudden weight. “We’ll have this conversation now.”

“It can’t be somewhere…more private, perhaps?”

“ _More_ private? _More?_ John, look around you. We’re in a two-story building without any living souls in at least two hundred meters. The only way it’d be more private is if we locked ourselves in the washroom down the hall.”

“I just don’t think—”

“Think what? You’re clearly uncomfortable with this topic of conversation, and yet we cannot move forward unless it’s been exorcised from us completely. You’re a doctor, what would you do with a gangrenous limb?”

“Not the best metaphor, Sherlock.” John frowned, lips pursed. “I don’t see our relationship as something I should be rid of.”

“You certainly seem to be treating it that way.” He responded lowly, unable to keep the slight tremor from his voice. At least, thankfully, it hadn’t cracked.

John said nothing in response, and he didn’t need to. He felt the low coil rise deep inside him, the nuclear reaction compressing inwards in the brief moment before expansion.

“What is it? What can I do to–to—” To what? _Make you love me again? Not be disgusted by me when I touch you?_ “To remedy this situation?”

John sighed, and it was a sound he knew well. It said without speaking: I’m tired, I don’t want to talk about it anymore, leave it alone.

“I need…space.”

He frowned, that cold feeling curling inside him again. “Space? You’ve had ten years of it. Surely that would be enough.”

“No, not…I don’t mean emotional.”

The floor began to unravel beneath his feet, slowly, then all at once as he realized–

“You want to leave.”

He had not been alone, truly alone, in over three hundred years.

“I don’t know.” John admitted quietly. “I haven’t decided.”

Moonlight was streaming in through the windows, reflecting off the waters that slowly lapped in and out. He couldn’t remember why they had come here, what they were doing in this foreign place, these foreign words filling him, topping him over easy as a breeze to a feather. He was falling now, down into the darkness, falling as the voice called out:

_You’ll never have him back the way you did before._

*   *   *

_Calle Posta Cannaregio, Sestieri Cannaregio, Venice_

The candles and oil lamps were all lit in their windows, glinting against the green lagoon as their small boat gliding along the canal. A black cat napped in an open sill, the smell of fish and frying potatoes drifting out past it to join the fog rising from the cooling waters.

She was already waiting on the steps outside, dark form covered under an umbrella dripping in dramatic gold fringe, held up by one of her liveried staff, lined up in an obedient row to receive them. John smiled as he stepped up onto the dock, and Sherlock sat for a moment, and wondered at the first genuine glimpse of excitement he’d seen from his mate in a long time. He noted the feeling, then swept it aside as he too climbed from the boat.

“ _Gianni_. It is wonderful to see you again.” Their host said, laughing as she grasped him by the shoulders, taking him in. “Time has done good work. You look much better than you used to. No beard this time, I see.” Her gaze swept over to Sherlock, and she stepped forward, offering her gloved hand. “And I believe we have this man to thank. Good evening, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Hello, Artemisia. Your English has improved.”

“A radiant compliment coming from you. I thank you.” She turned to John and smiled. “It has been a long time, no? No one is coming to see me anymore in my old age.”

“Why on earth would anyone want to go to _Naples_?” Sherlock asked and Artemisia’s eyes narrowed.

“Just as charming as I remember. Come, you must be hungry. Let us eat.”

*   *   *

She and John talked amiably, Sherlock a ghost in tow as they followed their host down the long, arched halls, candlelight gleaming off gilded frames, paintings in rich shining tempuras of eggy yellows, vibrant reds, deep oily black.

“You’ve been busy.” John noted, eyeing the draped canvases in the foyer laying in their padded crates, ready to be shipped to their patrons.

“I’ve been _lucky_ ,” Artemisia corrected, “It is heartening to see that people still desire good art.”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll ever want for commissions—” John said, coming short as she stopped in the middle of the narrow hallway.

“You are kind, Gianni. Come, this way.” The candles guttered as she reached out to press a panel in the wall, a door swinging inwards as she stepped into the concealed hallway. “For security, as you know. If the palazzo is to come under attack, there is another passage in the kitchen that comes out through the sewer. This one leads to my private salon.”

“Did you design the house yourself?” John asked, ducking low to avoid a drooping beam. "It seems like it's been built upon.”

“This is Venice—everything has been built upon. And this place it is always sinking. But sometimes that is what we want."

Sherlock paused for a moment, eyes narrowing in the dark among the candlelight. In the distance, the sound of clinking silver, glass, laughing.

"Leon is still in business, then?" He said. Although he kept his tone light, he knew she shared John's special talent of spotting his disingenuity. 

"I will answer John's question first, which will do me the favour of also answering yours." Artemisia answered, leading them down a series of steps, into the cool darkness. "The house is strong. I have merely added certain features which suit me, including renting half of my property to Leon for his inn."

"It's a front, then?" John asked.

"She learned from the best." Sherlock muttered. "How is Potempkin by the way?"

"You may sleep on the docks if you'd prefer." Their host sniffed, sorting through a ring of keys as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yes, well. You do have rather byzantine tastes."

"A hard habit to break." She agreed, unlocking the door. They entered a richly decorated foyer, following the fine crimson rug directly towards a single staircase.

"I had been having help from the covenant." Artemisia said as they climbed. "That is how you say that, yes?”

“Yes.” John said quickly, shooting Sherlock a look over his shoulder. “More or less.”

“Don’t be so disapproving, Sherlock Holmes.” Artemisia added, leading them down a short hall. “The covenants here are not the same as yours.” She turned, opening the door as she leaned against it. “You haven’t changed at all. I can feel that sour look on your face.”

“I’m afraid that’s just his face.” John smiled. “It’s something you get used to.”

*   *   *

Artemisia’s salon was a subdued but tasteful room, paneled in dark wood and dominated by a large fireplace filled with lit candles. The canal waters slowly drifted past underneath the windows, opened to let in the cool night breeze. The house, John quickly found, was a bit of a maze, separated by false walls from the busy inn on the other side. As many things with Artemisia, you had to go down before you went up, winding upwards from the servant's quarters to her salons and apartments, carefully concealed but open to the canal. Never one to deny her creature comforts, even at the risk of a little sunlight.

Sherlock had wandered off after they had eaten, his oncoming sulk mediated by Artemisia happening to let word slip of her alchemy lab in the cellar.

“Don’t ruin the vintage!” She had called after him as he disappeared into the concealed hall, his cloak flapping dramatically behind him. “That man has a natural flare for dramatics.” She sighed.

“That he does.” John agreed, laying back against the seat of the plush chaise, his teeth beginning to recede as his eyes closed.

“So, Gianni, tell me of Norway.”

His eyes snapped open and he lifted his head.

Artemisia shrugs. “Words, they are travelling fast in our circles.”

“Does _everyone_ know?” John huffed.

“No, I would not be saying that, but I believe Irene is doing her best to see to it.”

“Irene,” John hummed, hands crossed over his stomach. “So she came here, did she?”

“Yes. About three years back. On her way to Switzerland.” Artemisia answered, standing to gather their used pewter glasses. “If it is making you feel better, I did not ask; she offered the information herself.”

“Naturally.”

“Still, I am glad to hear that you are together. It is a sad thing when a bond fails. Love, marriage – it is different for us, no? We take it seriously. Are you still hungry?”

John waved a hand. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Have you initiated a feeding with him in the interim?”

“ _What?_ ” John sat up, whirling around to face her over the lip of the armrest. It was an incredibly _personal_ question to ask, even friends older than they would not ever speak of it. It was an acknowledgement of something intimately private, something the questioner had no right to participate in or involve themselves in. It was a question Irene would ask.

“That is the word in English, yes? ‘Feeding’?”

‘Yes, Artemisia.” He replied, somewhat dazed, “That’s the word in English.”

“It sounds vulgar.”

“It is.”

She shrugged, sitting back down across from him.

“Why did you feel that you could ask me that?” He asked.

“What, the English word?” She asked, but John knew she wasn’t so naïve. “Translation is one thing, pronunciation another. I will have to be making mistakes until I learn the intricacies of your language—”

“Artemisia.”

“Irene indicated to me that you might be having a…compatibility problem.”

The question itself was not what bothered him; he was rather surprised she hadn’t asked with Sherlock in the room, or upon greeting them; Artemisia had little time to entertain etiquette before she would toss it aside and address the heart of the matter—the true eye of a painter, seeing straight into the bottomless color of things.

No, what surprised him was the thought that Irene, of all people, seemed to be behind it. But just as Artemisia was as perceptive as she was smart. She would not be manipulated by Irene, or anyone, if she didn’t allow herself to be first—something he admired, and that Sherlock hated. John was of the opinion that, should she choose to, Artemisia could easily dominate not only the politics of the human world, but theirs as well. It was a pity, then, that of the two times she had met Mycroft, what seemed like a perfect pairing both times had quickly devolved into a wraith of blood and barbed words.

“And why are you relaying this to me?” He asked carefully. Artemisia was not partial to accusations, and instead was quick to suspicion, and quicker to a grudge. “Aren’t I in the best position to know the state of my bond?”

“Because Gianni, I care about your happiness, and I’m an old woman with nothing left to do in this lonely mansion but worry over my friends and their happiness.”

John nearly rolled his eyes. He hadn’t expected dramatics this soon—typically it was two to three glasses in. But, now that he thought about it, her supply had been rather exceptional, made him feel warmer, more pliant. She had picked it smartly; she’d wanted him relaxed and open to questions. Heaven only knows what Sherlock’s reaction was. He’d be in the oubliettes by dawn if he got into the vintage.

“That’s very considerate of you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You suspect my intentions?”

“No,” he answered slowly, prickling at the edges, “but it’s not really your business, is it?”

Artemisia sighed. “ _Gianni_ , you know I worry.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Everything is fine.”

“Everything is not fine. You have been together for over three hundred years; if everything were fine, I suspect you would not have come here unless I invited you. While I am appreciating your unannounced visit, do not think me foolish enough to presume it is only for the pleasure of seeing my face. Now, we are speaking the truth, yes? So, begin.”

She looked at him expectantly and he inwardly sighed. In _truth_ , the last thing he wanted to do was discuss his private life—he knew they were not on the right path after Norway, recognized that healthy couples did not throw screaming fits over crockery in the dead of winter because one of them was breaking down and the other was punching up. If anything, he was all too aware of their collective failures; he did not need another’s confirmation to tell him that. And yet…he wanted to hear an outside opinion. He would be brief, then, and clear. No misunderstandings or twisting of facts, nothing to give to Irene, should she go snooping, as she most likely would.

“If Sherlock asks, I won’t lie to him.” He said evenly. “You know about Norway, so I assume you know about China, too.”

She nodded. “And Algiers.”

“Then you’re aware of the difficulties we’re facing. We’ve had…a lot to come back from, things we’re still working out. But it’s still better than it used to be, and Irene has no business twisting the knife she put there herself, and neither do you.”

Artemisia raised her brow, but said nothing; she had a small smile on her face. “I have a dissenting opinion. If you will allow me to say it, as an old friend who wishes well for you, I believe you do not want to talk about this, not because of etiquette, but because you have no desire to address the problems within your relationship and your current sexual incompatibility with your mate.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it because there is nothing _you_ need to know about.”

She shook her head back in response. “ _You_ have already lost before we begin the game, Gianni. If we are to follow your proposition, then you have negated the problem from the outset. If you did want to talk, then you talk with Mr Holmes, alone, and we know you have not. That’s very poor logic for a chess player to use.”

“I agree.” Another voice added, and John turned to meet his mate’s eyes as he closed the hidden door, cloak over his arm. “Your strategy is rather sloppy.”

John felt blood rush to his ears as they reddened; still such an odd sensation, so close to a feeding.

“Sherlock,” Artemisia replied cordially. “Did you enjoy the lab?”

“Profoundly. You’ll be happy to know the vintage was undisturbed.” He stepped forward, pulling a vial from the pocket of his coat. “At your leisure, please see that this goes to Mycroft.”

She smiled, disappearing it up her sleeve. “What is it?”                                                          

“Something wicked.” Sherlock said, a grin coming to his face. “He’ll hate us for eons.”

John might have been worried, but he knew the two, despite their stubbornness, were united in the singular cause of making Mycroft’s life as complicated as possible, through uncivil and subtle means alike; two siblings forever conspiring to undermine the favourite.

“I thank you, and also for the alembic you still owe me.”

His husband balked. “That was fifty years ago.”

“What?” John frowned.

“It was a gift from my sister. I’ll have a replacement.”

“You were here without me?” John asked, but was steadfastly ignored.

“Do you know how expensive that will be to send it here?”

“Please,” Artemisia scoffed, “you come from one of the oldest lines. They dwarf my wealth ten times at least.”

“Fine.” He sighed, knowing it was best to capitulate than to fight her. “Order whatever you want, but send Mycroft the invoice—”

“You came here after Austerlitz?” John interrupted. “ _That_ was where you were?”

“It was a brief stop. I was on my way to meet you in Heidelberg.”

“He only stayed a week—” Their host offered.

“Thank you, Artemisia.” Sherlock scowled, turning to his mate. “John. We need to talk. Good night, Artemisia,” he added, speaking to their host as he took hold of John’s arm.

“Good night.” Artemisia replied sweetly, her voice following them as Sherlock all but dragged him down the hall. “Rest well!”

*   *   *

Sherlock followed him in, shutting the door to their room before tossing his cloak over the chair, shoulders tense.

“What did you do here for a week?” John asked.

His mate paused as he slid out of his boots, unbuttoned the chemise. “Does that upset you, that I was here without telling you?”

John sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, considering. “No. It surprises me more that there are things I’m still learning about you.”

“Is that bad?”

“It can be, sometimes. When you hide things.” He said, watching as Sherlock shrugged out of his shirt. “Give it here. You’ll just crease it.”

He handed over his shirt. As reached over to turn down the oil lamp, the light caught the line of gold at his chest. He sighed. “This hasn’t left us.”

“It’s rather overstayed its welcome.” John agreed mildly, straightening the shirt at its seams.

Silence, then Sherlock spoke again, quietly. “Are you telling me to go?”

“No!” He said quickly, straightening up. “No, I’m just saying it’s something we should have discussed by now. I should have asked, said something…”

“John, it’s alright—”

“No,” he shook his head. “it’s not.” He perched on the edge of their bed, looking up across the room at his mate, standing as still as stone, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, the blade to fall; suddenly he hated himself, how he had acted, how he’d behaved. Sherlock’s recovery had not been easy, and it was not far in the distance behind them, yet he still acted as if it were possible these last years had been for nothing, as if one fight, one criticism, one misconstrued word might send his mate spiraling back down into the darkness that had consumed them in Norway.

“I’ve been too careful with you.” John continued. “I haven’t treated you as if I trust you. What happened to you, to us, I haven’t been able to get past.”

_You’ll never have him back the way you did before_.

“Why?” Sherlock asked quietly. “I thought…I thought when I got better you might—” Might what? Forgive him? Forget what he’d done? “I thought we would be like it was.”

“Sherlock, that’s—”

“—unrealistic, I know. I’ve realized that. I craved opium and nothing less than the destruction of the human race because I was emotionally unequipped to handle myself or our relationship responsibly. I think I, of all people, understand my own shortcomings.” He exhaled heavily, softening at the sight of his husband, the idiot, staring up at him from the bed. “What are you asking me, John?”

But he could tell his mate was too polite, too kind to really tell him what he was thinking: _What has happened to us? What have we done to each other?_

“Do you love me?” John asked, so quietly Sherlock almost thought he had imagined it, the bond whispering its deepest thoughts, but then he continued: “Am I…making you unhappy by being with me?”

“No.” He answered, without hesitation. “No, John. I want you with me, always. I think I’ve been rather insistent the fact that I cannot be what I am without you. If I were unhappy, you would know—”

“But that’s the problem—” John interrupted. “I didn’t know in Norway. Or maybe I did.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to be right, I think. I’ve never faced something like that. _We’ve_ never been like that before.”

“I didn’t intend to make it your first encounter.”

“I know you didn’t.”

Sherlock came to settle in front of him, between his knees. His hands came up to rest on John’s shoulders, separated by a thin layer of cotton shirt as he stared down at his mate. “I love you, John. If I didn’t, I would have stayed in Shanghai. I would have been gone long before Norway...of all people, you know best that I don’t suffer under situations I find intolerable—”

“But that’s just it, Sherlock. You _are_ suffering, this _is_ intolerable, and we’re nowhere closer to resolving this than we were when it happened. I thought I understood you,” John added quietly, “I thought after all this time together, all our time apart, that I had you figured out. I wasn’t expecting—I _didn’t_ expect this—and I think…that’s what bothers me the most. That I didn’t see it coming.”

Sherlock frowned. “How could you have? I didn’t. One of my many mistakes…” Slowly, he reached out to touch his husband’s face, but John leaned away, just enough to be out of reach.

“Not yet.” He said, and Sherlock believed him. “I know you explained it all, that you wanted it to be me, that you felt ignored, that you felt as if I wasn’t—”

“Don’t you think I am well-acquainted enough with the _exact_ causes of my greatest failures?” He snapped, then froze at John’s expression, open-mouthed and blank.

And then, John began to laugh.

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Irene was right,” he said, and Sherlock tensed. “Nothing ever changes with us, and when it does, we don’t know what to do with it. We are, the both of us, just two idiots in love.”

He would have been worried if John had not been smiling, genuinely smiling.

“She—you—wait, what?”

John stood, coming to rest in the negative spaces between them, and flickers of all of their past conversations floated down towards him.

“We’re always going in circles, aren’t we?”

“I don’t understand.” Sherlock frowned, the whiplash turn in their conversation sending him reeling. “Are we still arguing?”

John stared at him for a moment, his smile turning to something more bitter, wry. “It’s a surprise when we don’t fight…is that what’s become of us? Have we hurt each other so badly that this is normal?”

“No,” Sherlock answered, shaking his head. “This is a...a phase, it’s temporary—”

“Is it?” John asked, sitting back down. “It’s been ten years. Doesn’t sound very temporary.”

For a moment Sherlock didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what John wanted to hear, until he decided it no longer mattered. His eyes narrowed; he would not be muzzled by whatever inconvenient discussion John seemed to be both encouraging and dismissing at the same time. It was rather unsettling to see him so hesitant.

“You’re too afraid to say it, because that would mean speaking it into reality. Very well, you're always the brave one, so it's time that I say it: you are worried that my perceived infidelity and our reactions to it have damaged our relationship beyond repair. We need to talk about this—we can no longer afford to dance around it and pretend it doesn’t exist when it’s the only thing that’s ever really come between us. John,” He came forward again, crowding into his mate’s space, “the question that we are not asking each other is: is this worth it? Is being together worth the work? Don’t think. Don’t try to be kind to spare my feelings. Just answer.”

He stared down at his husband, and for a moment, one horrible moment, John paused, and everything threatened to fall apart. He shut his eyes—he couldn’t watch the words come out, he knew with certainty it would be his end if John were to say—

“Yes.” Came the small voice, assertive and sure. “Yes, of course it’s worth it. This, us, is worth it. Always.”

The weight inside him lifted, coil loosening. Carefully, he reached down and grasped John’s gloved hands in his, bare against soft leather, and John let him.

“Then, might I suggest, that perhaps words aren’t what we need right now.”

John looked up at him for a long moment, something indiscernible in his face, the pensive crease in his brow.

“We’ve changed.” He said.

“Yes.” Sherlock agreed. “But it’s nothing we can’t…recalibrate.”

John smiled, a little sadly, wistfully. He gripped Sherlock’s hands in his, then let go, standing up. A feeling had begun within him, something slow and powerful, a banked fire growing in heat. It had been a long time since he had felt _good_ , warm, content with where he found himself.

Wordlessly, he pulled off one glove, then another. Without looking away, he laid the pair in his husband’s palms, smoothing over the edges as he let them go. Sherlock’s hand curled around the supple leather and he stepped forward.

For a moment, there was silence as they stood in front of each other, staring. John smiled.

“I’d like for you not to keep me waiting until the next millennia, if that’s all right with you.”

And that was all Sherlock needed to bridge the gap between them, the approval he had sought to go forward for so long. He brought his hands to hold John’s face and let out a sigh of relief at the touch— finally—as they sank into their bond together.

Sometimes fire wasn’t enough; in Norway, it had nearly guttered out, gone in a cold wisp of smoke. Even on days when their connection shone brightest, when the apex had been reached and not yet crested, it had not felt as good as this. There was nothing as good as this, the immersion into a feeling so undiluted and crystalline, a new dimension in which to love and be loved, thoroughly known and understood.

There was a darker tinge to it, the sensation of a bruise not quite past, the broken capillaries still knitting together in slow atomic repair. He had felt it in Shanghai, in his unthinking grasp to convince John to forget, and it had been far worse then, a gaping red thing, deep and infected; it had felt wrong, sickly, the yellow spots of malnutrition threatening to swallow the leaves.

He rested his forehead against John’s, inhaling slowly if only for the comforting scent, so willing and so close. He had thought he had lost it, had thought his actions had spoiled it forever, that he might never experience it again. John had shut him out; the gates of the garden had closed, and a darkness so intense and inevitable had loomed in his sight, and he could no more shut his eyes to it than stem its flow as it overcame him entirely.

He hadn’t told John, hadn’t wanted to redirect their conversation, but he had felt something in the lab that night, crouched over, searching a mortar and pestle in the cramped, overladen quarters. It was an odd feeling, something he couldn’t identify. It had begun as a low burn in his stomach, not uncomfortable, but with edges threatening to catch, as if spurring him on towards some unknown conclusion. It was that feeling that had driven him upstairs, that feeling that dismissed Artemisia, that feeling which coerced him to finally ask the question neither of them had wanted answered, and that feeling that he now owed John’s renewed compliance. He had been overcome by the sense of doing something _right_ , when all of their recent encounters had been errors of judgment, bad circumstance, ill luck.

He surfaced out of their bond, reveling in their shared spaces. He had finally seen where they were, and, after so long of spinning in circles, he knew which way to lead them.

The ember smoldering away in his stomach began to heat. This feeling, he had forgotten, was happiness. He leaned down, pressing kisses from the bridge of John’s nose to the dip of his mouth. John’s hands came up from where they had been trapped between the two, rooting his fingers in the dark curls as he drew them closer together.

“I can’t believe it took us this long to even talk about it.” He said after a moment, breaking away. “We really are idiots.”

“Well your strategy could be…recalibrated.” Sherlock offered, a grin coming to his face. He hadn’t felt so light, so relaxed, in _years_.

John hummed, arms coming around his shoulders. “Maybe I do. You did say it was sloppy.”

“What?” He frowned. “When?”

“In the parlor earlier, when you came in from the lab.”

_Oh_.

“I meant _her_ strategy was sloppy.” he clarified. “Artemisia was attempting to illicit an emotional response to you by appealing to your kindness and your value of her friendship; she began almost as soon as we arrived. It’s a poor way for a chess player to behave.”

John smiled, despite himself, leaning in for another kiss. “Let’s not talk strategy.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed, meeting him in the middle, letting them meet and come apart, trailing his mouth over the bobbing apple in John’s throat, the new inches of smooth skin as each button on John’s shirt opened. He felt something brush against his head and he glanced up as John tried to untie his cravat.

“Leave it.” He said, stilling as he watched the black silk knot. “I like it on you.”

John nodded, letting his hands fall to grasp at his mate’s shoulders, his shirt soon hitting the floor.

Previously, this was as far as they’d gotten; heavy kisses, promising starts, but it all ended in a sudden chill, and Sherlock had acquiesced, recognizing all too well the reason why, the depth of intimacy John was not ready to commit to, whether or not it was the sex or the love or the bite.

But this was different; they had silently agreed it would not end like all the other luckless and aborted sessions. John had allowed him into their bond, fully. He was ready.

Sherlock ducked his head away from their kiss, lowering his teeth to graze the thin skin above John’s neck, and he felt them descend, lengthening, ready to feel that delicious pop of giving flesh as they pierced through the tissue, when John gasped, suddenly drawing back.

“What?” Sherlock asked, stepping back, readying for the dismissal, the closure, another cold night. “What is it? Did–”

“We’re _idiots_.” John breathed, realization crawling on slowly. He let out a breath of astonished laughter, knocking his head against his husband’s collarbone. “Artemisia spiked the dinner.”

“She—what?” Sherlock frowned as he looked back up.

“When you were in the lab, did you feel strange? Warmer, surer—?”

“—more relaxed, yes.” His mate finished, eyes widening. “But…why?”

“She wanted to talk about our bond. Or…she wanted to talk about our bond with me, but not you, because she knew I’d be upset, and goad you into a fight, and get us talking. God, she’s good.”

Sherlock hummed. “Mycroft has always resented asking for her help.”

“It stimulates blood flow. I felt my face heat up, I can’t believe I didn’t notice it…”

“Really?” A grin came to his mate’s face. “And when may I ask was that?”

“You may not ask. And I won’t tell you. Is this what you feel like all the time?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you realize things—big things, epiphanies. Is this what it’s like for you?”

“Perhaps. What are you feeling?”

“It’s as if…I’m incredibly right, without exception.”

“Eureka.” Sherlock said lowly, sitting on the bed as he grasped his husband’s hips.

“Yeah.” John sighed, following him down. “Eureka.”

*   *   *

Artemisia said nothing at breakfast, taken in the closed garden parlor on the veranda, the faint purple of the sun blending into the dark horizon through the greenery and darkened glass panes of the transparent room.

“So.” John began, nodding as the servant filled his glass.

“Yes?”                                                                    

“You were sitting on that for fifty years.”

“I am sitting on a bench. I am not understanding this saying.”

“Yes, you do.”

She smiled at him, a sly, knowing grin.

“Forgive me; I’m an old woman. My ears must be leaving me.”

“Your _hearing_ ,” John corrected, although how many of these gaffes were genuine or for her own end, he had no idea, “and you’re younger than I am.”

“Not by mortal standards—” She glanced up from her glass and smiled. “Ah, our most beloved immortal has awoken. How is his Highness feeling today?”

Sherlock scowled at her, flyaway hair curling madly from the humidity coming from the canal as it cooled in the night.

“The proximity to the water, it is doing wonders for the hair, no?”

He ignored her, sitting next to John with a huff. “May I have the decanter?”

“You may have more than that: I will be leaving, as I do believe I am needed elsewhere, but I ask that you do not make a mess, or, more preferably, that you will clean up after.” She said, shooting a pointed look across the table.

Sherlock uncorked the bottle. “Yes, mother.”

“Someone must be. Incidentally, if your evening is free, you will find two tickets to the regatta tonight in the foyer. I hear it will be quite an exciting race. Don't forget your masks.” Artemisia winked, taking her glass and disappearing down into the hidden hallway.

“She’s going to Florence, you know.” Sherlock said after a moment, head rolling to John’s shoulder.

“What, right now?”

“Mmm.” He hummed as John draped an arm around him. “That’s where the good stuff is.”

“It _is_ good,” John acquiesced, taking the empty glass from him and tilting it back, searching for the last viscous remnants.

“Nobody welcomes a glutton shadowing their doorway, John.”

“Pot and kettle, love.”

But Sherlock had already been lulled into silence as John rubbed slowly at his temple. The moon drifted in through the gauzy curtains, air thick with rising fog.

“Well, we can’t just sit here all night.” John said finally, withdrawing his hand to get his husband’s attention. “Game’s afoot.”

Sherlock glanced up at him, and he knew what that answering grin meant. “Arty will be gone until dawn. We’ll have to find trouble somewhere.”

“I hope you don’t call her that in her presence.”

“Rest assured John. If I did, she’d have my head hanging in the Uffizi by morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artemisia, as I'm sure our art lovers would know, is Artemisia Gentileschi, the famous Italian Baroque painter. You may know her portrayals of [Judith beheading Holofernes](https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/judith-beheading-holofernes).
> 
> Her story is absolutely fascinating, and I'd highly recommend looking her up. In this story, she lives in the Ca' da Mosto, one of the oldest buildings in Venice, which I learned about in a great documentary about the early history of the city and its architecture. If you'd like to learn more about Venice, check out "Francesco's Venice".


	2. Circle II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;  
> Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."  
> And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?"  
>   
> Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;  
> It is so willed there where is power to do  
> That which is willed; and ask no further question.  
> Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto V

The first time Sherlock had proposed, it had been said almost as an afterthought. The air was full of the smell of brackish water, burnt gunpowder, woodsmoke, the dull waters of the Thames lapping at the bridge as the two of them prepared to breach the Tower of London.

" _What?_ " John turned to him sharply, his teeth already descended at the scent of old blood, congealing on the pikes underneath the unblinking heads mounted on St Thomas'. He'd had his face turned towards the moon, watching for movement, when the appearance sentries sent him back, clutching the front of Sherlock's doublet as he pulled him close beneath the shadows of the closed market stalls.

Sherlock stared down at him, unperturbed. "Marry me." He repeated, his voice low and solemn.

"Very funny." John said, then, upon seeing he was serious, he frowned. "No. It's not the time. We'll talk about this later." But because he knew Sherlock did not have a nature that allowed him to leave something at an insufficient conclusion, he gripped him closer, kissing him for a long moment in the surrounding dark. "Later." He said, as the Traitor's Gate began to open and the barge they were waiting for came in.

The second time Sherlock had proposed, nearly two years had passed. They had not discussed it since the topic had first come up, but John had known, had always known, that despite his reservations, he would let Sherlock talk him into it, as he did with most everything. And Sherlock knew—as _he_ did with most everything—but had listened anyways to all the reasons why John thought it was a bad idea, why they should wait, how it could be used against them. He acknowledged it all, and shrugged, and asked again. And John said yes.

The third had been born from pure momentary impulse, and in that way had not differed so much from the first two, although it had involved much more intoxication, drunk on the wine-thickened blood from the revelers on the cliffside celebrating their own wedding, heedless of the wandering guests who reappeared woozy, clumsily trying to explain away their fresh, darkening love bites.

The fourth was entirely practical, not joyless, but more a matter of efficiency. And yet each time, it was Sherlock who asked, and each time, it had been no more planned or expected than the others that came before. John had come to learn not to consider it too deeply; they both knew what the answer would be, that it would always remain so.

And yet...

Sherlock stared across the bench at his mate, the boat rocking softly with the waves as it carried them through Venice. John had drawn his travelling cape around himself and lowered his hat, but Sherlock knew he never slept deeply during travel, a fragment of some long-ago instinct drilled into soldiers to enter a hibernating rest, only enough to sustain themselves.

"Do you think you'll grow a beard again?" He asked. John grunted from below the brim of his hat. "I rather liked it."

"Noted."

They lapsed back into silence. In the distance a small barge was passing, candlelight and laughter floating over the dark water.

John's ability to worm his way out of uncomfortable topics had always been a point of jealousy for him, because no matter the technique, no matter how he cultivated and worked at his disguises, his mannerisms, his studious attempts at personas and characters, his talent was no match for John's natural skill. His mate almost always saw right through him. Almost.

He turned to watch the rooftops. If his theory was correct, tailored to the facts as it was, then this creature would be waiting to pounce from above.

“ _Si ferma qui_.” He told the gondola driver, handing him a gold sovereign. The man’s eyes widened, and Sherlock smiled. “Two more if you wait.”

He climbed onto the fondamenta and offered John his hand. He didn’t need to, but still John took it. They touched briefly at the wrists, and it was enough.

“You brought the tickets, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And the masks?”

“Yes, old nan. Here.”

Artemisia hadn't been able to resist a passing pointed barb, providing them with two masks:  _Mezzetino_ , the virtuoso, the clever schemer, and the one-third mask of  _Il Dottore,_ which only hid the upper half of the face.

"Well, she's not subtle is she?" John cracked, taking the doctor's mask and tying it around the back of his head.

"Rather on the nose," He agreed, taking his mask in hand. John reached out to straighten it on his face, then did something he’d forgotten to expect long ago—he placed his gloved hands on either side of Sherlock’s face, and kissed him deeply.

“ _Sempre dritto_.”

He grinned, running his hand through the dark blonde locks, feeling their bond bristle pleasantly.

“ _Précisément, Jean_.”

*   *   *

_Ca’ Grande, Sestieri San Marco, Venetia_

The streets were bare and close to empty, but they could hear the faint roar and lights of the gathered crowd. As they rounded the corner onto the grand canal the scene blossomed before them in full: on either shore lines of barges and boats were moored to the docks, torches gleaming from their dark surfaces, illuminating the shouting figures, the laughing women draped in rich brocades, masks held to their faces as they picked at ornate silver platters of food and wine.

In the center of the canal, a mad rush of gondolas churned in the frenzied water, their drivers battling to turn their rudders as they raced around the bend, shunting into one another as the knocked against the tethered barges likes flies to a horse. Above, people leaned out of their windows, perched on the sills to get a better view. All around were figures cloaked in black, eyes shining from beneath the set white mask of the bauta, the volto, Colombina—anonymity, that generous gift of the carnevale season.

The thrill of the regatta, the eve of carnival, the drink, the darkened corners, the masks pretending at monsters—it was a ripe opportunity.

“Watch the eaves.” He said lowly, though part of him knew better than to give surveillance tips to a veteran with centuries of military history. There was a high probability that John had already zeroed in on numerous potential hiding spots.

He began to walk through the crowd, head tilted towards the race like the rest as he watched for any sign of their new, elusive game. Their bond, watered and blooded, hummed with vibrant expectancy.

Artemisia’s tickets had proven rather useful, as her gifts typically did—a cordial invitation to the birthday celebrations of one Ludovico Cadorin, commissioned architect of the Podesta of Venice himself. Festivities to begin after the dinner hour on the deck of the pleasure barge _Prudenzia_ , to be anchored in the most favorable view of the annual regatta which christened the newest carnevale season.

In reality, the boat bore an incredible resemblance to the _bucintoro_ , the long-scuttled and treasured lagoon barge of the past doges of Venice, ripped to pieces and burned for its gold by Napoleon—burned for three days in all. He’d had the underwhelming pleasure of sailing on the bloated thing a few times before but had lost count somewhere in the seventeenth century. He found its gilded veneer to be too loud, its passengers too stiff before the drinks and too unpredictable after them to be very enjoyable. John, on the other hand, had been right at home.

It was quite strange to see it now, a reconstruction based on the model of a memory. There was more of an exaggerated flourish behind it, something that the original had not possessed, even in all its finery. He eyed the golden figurehead as they came up to the front of the prow, the line tittering in anticipation of the evening. A light orchestra was playing on the deck, harpsichord and violin together, and faint sounds of clinking glasses, laughter, were floating down to settle and sink among the choppy waters. At the foot of Justice, rendered in exquisite detail, the Lion of St. Mark’s looked on, guarding two cherubs locked in battle, arrows ready to pierce the heart of the other.

He presented their invitations, and they crossed over the gangplank into the full and zealous revelry. The party had called for an all-black theme— _La Nuit d’Oriental_ —in keeping with the host’s interests in the _chinoserie_ so freshly arrived to the Continent. Beneath the long canopy whose golden tassels stretched the length of the ship, the interior stitched in blue velvet and fine silver stars. On one end, the guest of honour sat, lording over his loaned subjects for the evening. On the other, a small stage had been constructed, where a  _commedia dell'arte_ performance was in progress, the fool Pierrot, dressed in his white peasant blouse, clumsily pining for the unrequited affections of Columbine. Women watched, laughed, drank, dressed in lace and brocade and chatting with one another, crowned in sprays of peacock feathers painted gold. The men watched the regatta, buttoned neatly in dark velvet vests and high collars, the attending servants swaying through the crowd, adorned in elaborately beaded feng guan. Their eyes all shone from beneath their masks, grotesque painted faces, pleasure and pain, sorrow and love, the abnormal features glaring, laughing, crying with one another beneath the gilded paper lanterns. 

“Ridiculous,” he scoffed, turning to John, who was accepting two glasses of sangiovese under the guise of glancing at the attendees without raising suspicion. “That headdress is reserved for Chinese nobility. I doubt any of these servants have even been taught to _read_ much less rule—”

He took the offered wine and followed John through the crowd to the stern, where guests were expected to toast the man of the hour in ceremonial reverence before ceding themselves entirely to bacchanalian depravity. Cadorin, famed though he was, held little interest to him, and he raised his glass, parroted John’s wishes for another year of good health beneath the midnight canopy, and spat the wine out of his mouth over the side of the deck once they were out of sight.

“Too much to drink, already?” John asked, winking as he leaned against the railing, the wind ruffling his hair. He’d always been able to hold himself well when drinking was involved.

“If it must be red, I prefer the real stuff.” Sherlock quipped back, turning to stare at the race. “Did you see anything?” He asked lowly.

“No. But the night’s young yet. Perhaps they’re fashionably late.”

He shook his head. “This one is careful. Meticulous, and slightly manic about it. I expect they’ll be right on time.”

“And if they aren’t on the guest list?”

“Well, we’ll just have to keep our eyes open then, won’t we? I’ll keep the stern if you take the bow.”

John rolled his eyes. “You’re not fooling anyone, you great berk. You just want to be closer to get a sip off the drunker lot,” he said, but turned to head towards the other end, sure to find an eager conversational partner or two by the time he reached the figurehead.

Sherlock smiled, watching him disappear into the crowd. John was well-suited to the task, possessing certain charms that he lacked, gregarious when it suited him, friendly without seeming disingenuous. The perfect complement, his equal, perhaps not in sheer intellect, but in other ways. Though he might not admit it, John was smarter than he in some areas; moral fortitude; self-control; matters of the heart.

As he held the cut-crystal, looking out over the gathered crowd, he felt a low tension inside of him, one he did not feel often, something he couldn’t remember feeling in more than a hundred years. It was the memory of waking in the late morning sunlight, the lungful of a day’s fresh ocean breeze, the warmth of lying the summer sun. In its lower realms, it existed as mania, the collected excitement whirring with energy before the inevitable crash. As it was now, it was the feeling of hope, something small and fortified, a bud strengthening itself to bloom. He would have repossessed his own long-damned soul to bottle it, keep it somewhere safe and hidden, away from the rest of the world, labelled, perhaps, for John’s use only...

The hairs on his neck began to rise.

Carefully, he raised the glass to his lips. John was near the entrance, speaking with two women and a man, all of whom had a clear investment in making him their next sexual conquest. Boring. The other revelers were gathered in clusters in the usual places—the closest servant’s tray, the musicians, supplicating themselves in front of the guest of honour. Some were leaning over the railings below deck, heads and knotted ties of their masks visible as they cheered on the race sailing by. Others were applauding the comedy troupe's performance as the actors bowed once, twice, then dissolved into the crowd.

He turned back to the water. He doubted it would strike here, among such an obvious crowd, but stranger and more improbably things had occurred. A party would be to their advantage, certainly. Lowered inhibitions, carelessness, reckless decisions, anonymity. Yet all the other victims had been those who would serving this crowd rather than among them. Men: dock workers, a carpenter, a stable boy, all below the threshold of true sexual maturity. The most recent had been an attendant at the fish market, no older than 30. Perhaps there was a type, perhaps it was just opportunity, or perhaps they were simply the ones who would not be missed. He had not decided yet.

He scanned the rooftops across the grand canal. Piloerection was more likely to be caused by something behind him rather than in front—the fear response warning him of a predator approaching a vulnerable area. Nothing in the eaves, dark as they were. No disturbance in the crowds, milling about their tethered boats and sidewalks on the other shore.

A hand grasped him on the shoulder and he turned sharply. John had barely enough time to react, leaning back in an attempt to keep his wine from spilling.

“All right?” He asked, brow furrowing. Sherlock’s hand shot to his neck, brushing against the raised hairs.

“Nothing. Just a feeling.” He said simply, glancing back into the canal. “It was like—”

A scream, shattering glass. The canopy above Cadorin collapsed as the guest of honour was thrown against it, battling a dark figure clothed in billowing black. In an instant they had crossed to the mayhem, both grasping any part of the attacker they could reach. As he closed in, Sherlock could smell booze, rushing blood, the vitality of a heartbeat.

Disappointment curled inside him. A rowdy drunk. Nothing more.

He knew John had sensed the same, and they let the man be taken away, down off the gangplank as others rushed to help the fallen architect. At present Sherlock couldn’t have given a damn if he were the founder of Rome itself. He much more wanted this creature to show its face once and for all.

Something had been cut in the brawl. He whipped his head to face the source, teeth already lengthening within his mouth. Cadorin was holding a cloth to his head, where a light wound now bled freely into the fabric, soaking it through. He swallowed against the sudden sight, when a hand grabbed him roughly around the arm, leading him away— _no!_ —across the deck, and down into the galley. He was about to resist when he felt the bond lash him back into place, a strong, tensile sensation of self-control. Not his. John’s.

“Sherlock?”

He blinked, the fog clearing. John had led him into a chair in a dark corner. The water seemed closer, and as he came back to himself, he realized they were in some lower level below the deck, away from the clamor upstairs.

“Yes. Fine. I'm fine.”

John frowned, clearly unconvinced. There wasn’t time for this now.

He stood, merging again into the dark crowd. This lot was a little more sordid. Servants walked around with one breast bared, male and female alike, their faces covered in masks of the Chinese zodiac— the tiger, the pig, the dog, the rabbit. People hung out windows to watch the race, crammed themselves around gambling tables of green velvet, the  _pai sho_ boards, all flocked by flagons of wine. The air was thick with tobacco smoke, cloaked figures laughing, kissing in the dark, white masks askew as they grasped and writhed into the answering blackness and anonymity.

“‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’” He noted, lip curling as they meandered through the fray.

“Hardly,” John said. “Caetani was much more debauched. Still is.”

"Yes, well, we can't all pine for the lost days of our youthful sexual awakenings."

"Word is he's still in Anagni. We could pop in for a bit on the way back. If you could see the things he gets up to, at his age..."

"I'd rather not feed on a bag of bones, if it's all the same to you." Sherlock sniffed, but he felt something sour pass through the bond, a wisp of something almost acidic, bilious. Jealousy?

“Fancy a quick one?” A passing woman asked, glancing between the two of them from beneath a mask with warped and leering lecherous features.

“Perhaps later.” John answered politely. The reflux in the bond thrilled for a moment more, then settled.

She shrugged, continuing onward in her conquest. “The whole lot of you, dropping like flies.”

Sherlock frowned, his expression surely mirrored on John’s face. The hairs on his neck began to rise again.

“Sherlock—”

“I know.”

The scent of plasma was in the air, fresh platelets, vitality…The closer one focused, the clearer it became. A man slumped in the corner, drunk, close to dead, twin puncture wounds in the curve of his shirt. Women laughing, a little too giddy, lightheaded from the wine, the blood loss, the nicks on their wrists. A servant in the corner brought a towel to another, their bared chest littered with purple teeth marks.

In a moment he was standing before the servant, towering over him, narrowing his focus as their eyes met. “ _Chi ha fatto questo?_ ”

“ _Colui che piange, il pazzo_ …” With an incriminating hand, the servant gestured to his face, drawing a tear down his cheek.

He didn't have to look behind to know John would follow. They raced back up to the deck, where the winners of the race were being presented with their laurels and congratulations. Despite the wound on his head, Cadorin was once more the imperial reigning Bacchus, a sweet pheromone trail from the clotting plasma proteins lilting in the breeze. He turned to it, and caught sight of another doing the same: the fool, Pierrot, wandering through the crowd, his white peasant shirt now dotted in spots of red.

Sherlock darted through the crowd, reaching a hand out to grab it by the scruff, to incapacitate, to shake out the spine of the monster, when it turned. Behind the plain white mask, the single black teardrop, the eyes were red, glowing, as if staring at the sun through closed eyelids, as if staring at the sun, the sun, burning—

He reeled back, nearly collapsing into John, who barreled forward, heedless of the eyes. But they did not turn to him, did not look away from Sherlock, and he felt something within him begin to shift, to crumble, threatening to erode into total collapse.

It blinked, once, and just as John reached out to grab its sleeves, it vanished into nothingness, the air around, as if it had never been there to begin with. No one in the party had noticed, would not have cared much if they did, but those eyes remained, their redness seared into his retinas.

Someone was calling his name. A jolt over the bond brought him to the surface and he glanced down at John, who had him by the arm, urging him forward. 

“It's gone, John.” He said, unable to keep the disappointment from creeping into his voice, already fermenting bitterly within him.

Somewhere, a woman laughed at some joke as if she might never laugh again.

*   *   *

Sherlock was silent as they made their way off the boat and onto the fondamenta, still full of masked revelers toasting the induction of carnevale, the great race, the libertine night here on the dark water.

John knew his husband well enough not to pry. He would speak when he was ready. Their bond thrummed like a bruise as the excitement spoiled into negated energy, tinged with something he couldn't place. It was almost like the memory of tang of sweat, adrenaline, fear. He could get a sense Sherlock’s thoughts if he concentrated enough, bringing them into focus over the bond  _nothing,_ _and the evening, what a waste—red, like sun, the same as Dartmoor, same as..._

Sherlock's head whipped around." _Don't go there_." He snapped, and John obeyed, retreating backwards through the bond until he reached a safer distance.

He stayed close beside him as they walked. Sherlock was vibrating in place, nearly manic as he tried to process whatever he had seen, whatever he was thinking. It roiled through their bond, tampered down one moment with a logical fireblanket, then roaring back to life in the next. Finally, he'd had enough, and dragged Sherlock into a dark corner half-shielded by a butcher's stall. He pinned him against the wall at the knees, shoving their masks up as his hands burrowed into the dark curls, and he pulled their faces together, kissing him deeply, and without hesitation. For a moment, Sherlock seemed to white out, unmoving, channeling nothing over the bond. But then he stirred, pressing closer, anchoring deeper in the feeling as he responded in kind. The press of the bricks, the revitalized sense of closeness, John's current preoccupation with the constellation of moles on his neck _—_ it was a different kind of burning, one he far preferred above all others.

"Better, yeah?" John asked quietly, lacing their gloved hands together.

"Yes." Sherlock answered, nodding as he rested his head against John's. His fangs had come unsheathed, their healthy growth promoted by the heady combination of John's attention and the strong scent of old blood coming from the locked butcher's cabinets.

"Good. Now come on then. Game's not over yet."

Carefully, John set both their masks back in place, brushing his mate's hair back behind his ears before leading him by the hand back into the crowd, slowly gravitating towards the night's final inaugural act at Saint Mark's.

“I’m rather surprised she didn’t make an appearance.” His mate said, almost to himself.

“Who?”

“Artemisia. The _Prudenzia_ is her boat after all, John. Named for her mother and daughter. Do keep up.”

They rounded the corner to where their gondola and its driver had been slated to wait. The water taxi was still tied to its post, but the driver was now slumped over against the oar racks, dark blood soaking his lapels. Sherlock’s teeth descended so rapidly at the smell that his fangs punched twin holes into his lip, and he felt John steady himself as the scent washed over him too.

“Sherlock.” John said lowly, and he forced himself to look where John had focused his attention: the white figure, unseen by mortal eyes as it skirted the walls like a crawling bug over the meandering, intoxicated crowd, no more aware of the danger than they currently were of their own feet, judging by the state of them. It disappeared into a narrow alley and they darted over, standing side by side at the lip of the darkness.

Together, they went forward. Once, in another life, they would have run in without question, heedless of the danger. Now, they walked slowly, carefully. John reached towards his waistcoat, where a wooden stiletto was strapped to the piping at his side. The alley was a ramo, closed off at the end by apartments, houses, private gates. There was nowhere for it to run, but it had proven to be capable of rationality, of calculation. No youngling would ever hide behind a mask—this one was something else entirely.

At the end of the ramo was a rain well, no longer in use, sealed by the city with a heavy stone lid. He turned to John, frowning.  _Up, or down?_ Both paths were equally likely, but the idea of dropping into an enclosed space, of such limited proximity to something dangerous, made him wary. Kneeling, he examined the stone, sniffing at the outer edges until he spotted it, faintly, but nevertheless there: the smell of blood, imprinted in a crescent shape, the curve of a palm.

He lifted the stone as if it were no heavier than a pillow, propping it against the side. He leaned forward to stare down into the darkness, but a hand at his neck made him pause. John was worried.

"Could be a trap."

"The idea is less than tactical," he agreed.  _But you are with me._ "There's strength in numbers, John."

"We don't know what's down there."

"Well, we'll have to find out, then, won't we?"

And with that, he dropped down into the black, the wind rushing past his ears. For a brief moment, he couldn't tell if he was flying or falling, and then the ground came up to meet him. John's descent was much more cautious. Ever the soldier, he had free rappelled down the side, landing in a fighting stance.

Although the well had been closed,  some of the water still remained puddled, brackish and old. It was damp, widening into what had once been a small aquifer, the circumference wide enough for the two of them to stand side by side, giving them the advantage.

" _Mostrati, prego_." He said, feeling John tense behind him.

For a moment, there was silence. Then out of the darkness, the masked fool appeared, white blouse stained in dark blood glowing in the beam of moonlight. It tilted its head one way, then another, as if examining them.

The well was closed from above, the stone capping it once more with a final thud, and in the shadows Sherlock felt a thrill ghost along his bond, felt it himself too—fear, or something like it. The hairs on his neck rose once more. They were trapped, had let themselves be baited. The party, such easy victims, the prematurely ended chase. It had been right in front of them all along. _Stupid_.

The creature took a step forward, and the leather of John's gloves creaked as he tightened his grip on the wooden stake, ready to react, to fight if it came to it.

“No need for hostilities, gentleman.” A voice said from the darkness. “We’re all friends here.”

John stiffened beside him as as a stone vault was rolled aside, spilling candlelight into the antechamber. The smell of begonias, hatefully familiar—

Irene smiled, placing a hand on the creature's shoulder as it took a step backwards towards her.

“Right on time. Welcome to the _mascherari_.”


	3. Circle III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> Say where they are, and cause that I may know them;  
> For great desire constraineth me to learn  
> If Heaven doth sweeten them, or Hell envenom."
> 
> And he: "They are among the blacker souls;  
> A different sin downweighs them to the bottom;  
> If thou so far descendest, thou canst see them.
> 
> But when thou art again in the sweet world,  
> I pray thee to the mind of others bring me;  
> No more I tell thee and no more I answer."  
> Dante's Inferno, Canto VI  
> 

John hadn't moved since his eyes fell on her. Their bond thrilled with roiling jealousy, nausea, blistering anger. Sherlock could not distinguish it from his own.

"The night's young," Irene said. "You're welcome to come in, provided you leave your weapons at the door—"

John stepped forward, and for a moment he was worried his mate might drive it straight through Irene's cat-and-cream smile. But he shoved the stake at her flatly and stormed past.

"I'll have the other one too, love." Irene called back. John reached into his coat and snapped the other one in half, tossing the pieces aside before he disappeared through the arched portal.

"Temper, temper." She turned to Sherlock and grinned.

"I'm afraid I'm of a similar mind to finish what he started myself." He said coldly. "Apologies."

"Don't blame me, sweetheart. It takes two after all—"

"Don't call me that." He snapped, and passed by her too, following his mate into the foyer, sparkling with low and muted candlelight.

"You do play hard to get, don't you?" Irene grinned, and the fool rolled the stone back over the entrance, sealing them all in the darkness together.

*   *   *

If looks could kill, Irene would be dead twice over, but she paid their glares no mind as she led them through the damp tunnels.

"I suppose you're wondering what I want with the two of you."

"Not particularly." John snapped.

"You might have written and simply spared yourself the theatrics." Sherlock intoned, following close to John in case he needed to intervene. Although their bond churned and frothed like capsizing waves, John still had a tight grip over the dark water.

"What's the fun in that?" Irene sighed. "A girl has to find some way to spend the century."

"And what of your guard dog?" He asked tightly. "Or should I say errand boy." The fool was following them a pace or two behind, and he could feel the red eyes boring into him from below the mask, the hair on his neck constantly on alert.

"Don't worry your pretty curly head over him. He heels when I want him to."

 "Sure of that, are you?"

Irene turned her head slightly, so only one eye peered at him. "It worked on you didn't it?"

A giant wave crashed through their bond, cresting against the lid John was trying to hold against it. They reached a door at the end of the tunnel.

"Keep your masks on," Irene said as she reached for the knob. "Anonymity is part of the fun."

The door swung open, revealing a large, low room, lit by gleaming candelabras.

Rich dark rugs ran the length of the room, interrupted by plush chaise lounges, couches, decorative pillows. As they walked in, eyes peered up at them from beneath a coterie of masks bent in frozen expressions of lust, pleasure, pain, sorrow. Cloaked figures bent over sprawled women, men, humans, some squirming in the throes of hazy pleasure, others halfway to death, pale and blue at the lips.

One looked up as they passed, rasping and raising a hand to paw weakly at the air, as if asking for help. John stopped, tensing as if he might attend to him, that time-worn reflex of a healer. Before he could move, Sherlock laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Punctured airway." He said quietly. "He'll drown in his own blood even if you intervened." He wrapped a hand around his mate's elbow and after a moment, reluctantly, John followed.

"I presume this particular bacchanal isn't to honor the carnevale." Sherlock said, willing his fangs to recede so he could push back the bloodcall, its tantalizing pull like a magnet to metal shavings.

"Heavens no," Irene hummed. "Just an average Tuesday night. This way." She veered off to the left, descending a short flight of stairs into a sudden plunging darkness. "These tunnels were built centuries ago. They even connect to the Campo in San Marco. The Castellanis used them as escape routes to smuggle goods through the port. Plenty of secrets," she winked at Sherlock, "In case you get bored."

"Just tell us why we're here." John growled. "The bodies, the murders, left out like pieces of candy, to what? Lead us to some party of jaded octocenarians looking for a thrill?"

"Do give me some credit, John." Irene said in the darkness. "There's much more to this than some garden-variety debauchery."

At once, candles flared to life, illuminating the small room. In the center of the loamy floor was a fresh grave, spilling the smell of damp dirt into the chamber, full of the rich carbon smell of decay. A dead rooster lay at the head, a goat with its throat slit at the foot. Both had been completely exsanguinated, and Sherlock felt himself grow cold somewhere deep in his core. The sensation of ice crawled along their bond, and he knew John had come to the same conclusion.

"What have you done, Irene?" He asked lowly.

"That," she said, "is a question I can't answer. You'll need to see the monsignor."

" _Can't_  or  _won't_ —?"

Irene's eyes narrowed. "I think we've already determined the difference between  _can't_  and  _won't_ , Sherlock Holmes. Somewhere in Norway, if I remember correctly. Or was it Xiguan—?"

" _Enough_." Came a dark voice, and for a moment Sherlock didn't realize it came from John, hadn't heard it since China, knew it was the tone of the battle-weary with no patience for games. "Tell us now, or I walk and I'm taking Sherlock too."

Sherlock frowned at his wording, but knew there were bigger things to worry about, and filed them away for later.

Irene looked back and forth between the two of them. "I need your help." She said finally. John's brow raised at such a straight answer, but he pushed onwards.

"With what?"

Nothing about Irene's body language changed, but he could tell she was keeping something reserved, hidden away up her sleeve as always, but not from them—rather, from the silent fool standing close by, red eyes fixated on the grave.

"There are things that are happening in the world, right under your nose. Dark things. Unnatural."

John scoffed. "So we're all just your normal undead creatures of the night then? Ta very much."

"Don't be willfully stupid. We know you're smarter than that. There's us, there's them, and there's the dead. This is none of those things. Who do you think that is there?" She said, nodding to the fool. "You think he was born with those eyes? You think he's like you? Or me? Or any of those ignorant little infantile creatures plying each other with wine above us?"

John's eyes flickered back to the creature in white, its glowing embers peering back.

"Don't worry. He can't think for himself. He only does what I tell him to."

"He's your thrall." John concluded.

"No. No, he's something else entirely. Nothing you or anyone else has seen before. Orso,  _la gola_."

In a moment, the fool had John by the throat, hoisting him off his feet. Sherlock hissed, moving to rip his arms off. Rip off his head. Protect his mate—

"Orso,  _mollalo_."

—whom he caught as he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground.

" _Vai a letto_ ," she said, and the fool dropped into the grave, closed its eyes, and stilled.

"I thought I was past wanting to murder you on sight," John said irately as he stood,"but you've always been good at proving me wrong."

Irene wasn't looking at him, or paying attention to what he was saying. She stood at the mouth of the gave and stared down at the sleeping thing, hands folded low at her stomach. Her face was full of something almost like sorrow, or as close to pity as she could come to. A mother looking at her unnatural child.

"I've done something terrible," she said quietly. "Something I can't undo."

"Hardly a surprise, coming from you."

She ignored the barb, which was all Sherlock needed to know something horrible was coming. It was as if the fight had gone out of her completely, replaced with something great and hollow and sad. If John weren't so focused on hating her, he would see it too.

"Irene." She looked over at the sound of her name. "What have you done?"

 "You weren't the only ones to lick your wounds after Norway. I hurt, too. I suffered. Punishment, pleasure...the same cords of one knot. We're undone by our best strengths, manifest in our weaknesses."

"We'll help you," Sherlock said suddenly, ignoring the immolation that roared over their bond. John would be furious, but if his suspicions were correct it would be something he could perhaps forgive. He was good at that. "Just tell us. Enough stalling."

"I joined the khlysts." She said baldly, frankly. "The magic, the power...I went too far."

He shut his eyes, as if it meant he wouldn't hear what she was going to say next, although the deepest parts of him already knew it was true.

"I brought him back. Moriarty."

*   *   *

Irene had shut the door on the sleeping creature and led them up to her private rooms overlooking the narrow canal. The parlour was hung with deep green velvet, gleaming dark parquetry, the windows flung wide to receive the breeze, the sound of the water, the unaware revelers below still drinking the night away in their cups as they laughed and talked and gave into what they assumed to be their worser natures. Carnality wasn't all there was to a monster, and they had no idea what kind of evil had been loosed among them. Fools.

John hadn't said anything since her revelation, which was perhaps as worrisome as the revelation itself. He was leaning against the open window, arm propped on the lintel as he stared silently down into the wavering, restless crowd. For a moment, it was fifteen years ago, the same wind, the same night, a thousand miles away in Xiguan. The same cast, the same roles. The same distance between. As if nothing had changed at all.

He was tired of time, fatigued down to the bone and marrow. He was tired of its persistent stubbornness, the water that changed on the surface but the current which remained, as always, the same. Always, draining round and round. It made him sick.

He reached out over the bond, not to touch but to see. Grazing against it, John bristled like a cat, but didn't shrink away.

"You'll tell us everything." John said, back still turned to watch the street. His tone brokered no argument, but Sherlock already knew Irene would talk. He knew the moment she appeared again—she'd never let them know where she was unless she wanted them to.

Irene's head lolled against the back of the chaise as she turned towards him. "Where should I start? Norway? When I saw two harts limping along and pounced?"

She looked at John and smiled. Men had killed to have that smile directed at them, and for even less than that. John stared at her silently, unmoving. Letting out a weary sigh, she leaned forward to pour herself a thick drink from the pewter flagon, then knocked it back in one go.

"After you left, so did he." She gestured to Sherlock. "Not really, you know. Just in ways that mattered. Up here," she tapped her head, "Down there." She winked. "It wasn't much fun, to be honest, least of all for him, and for me. I was bored. I'm sure you've heard that one before."

She poured another drink and swirled the contents of the small chalice, interrupted by bits of viscera.

"He followed you to Algiers, and I was left wondering which of you was the dog trotting along after its master." Irene stared at the open window, stared into something past it all, dark and unreachable. "I was alone after Norway. I haven’t been alone in two hundred and three years. And I reacted…poorly. Same as you."

She paused to sip from the shining chalice, the dual reflection of her audience warped into shadows in the silver. "You went your own ways. I went to Siberia. Irkutsk was quite lively, and full of exiles. I joined them. I found the khylsts, or maybe they found me. They’re quite good at making circumstance seem like fate."

“What did they promise you?”

She smiled, huffing a faint laugh as if remembering some joke she heard long ago. “What do they always promise—power, money, love. Secret knowledge. The promise, at this point, is rather irrelevant."

"Humour us all the same. We've got all night."

Irene pursed her lips and toyed with her glass. John made for the door, and was almost there when she spoke, quietly, almost a whisper to herself:

"They told me I could have Kate back."

John stopped, but didn't turn around.

"Kate's dead, Irene." He said bluntly. "I saw it happen. There's no coming back from that."

"Well I believed them anyways." Irene answered quietly.

"And all this was worth it, then? What does that say about you?"

"You would do the same if it were him." Irene responded tartly. "What does that say about you?"

"Right," John said firmly, and then the structure of the dam cracked, and he disappeared out down the hall, their bond funneling into a dark and swirling charybdian chaos. Sherlock stood, swaying slightly under the deluge, and started after him. Irene grabbed his arm lightly at the wrist.

"Let him go." She said softly.

"Why, so he can do your bidding again, like some attack dog on a leash? And we can be beholden to you and your twisted generosity for another decade?" He snarled, his mind tangled and knotted in the black emotional undertow that John had left in his wake. "I'm tired of him running away. I'm tired of you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. I want to...I want...I want..."

Want what? He wanted John, wanted to abscond to a cave with him until the heat death of the earth, wondered if perhaps they might live past that, might continue on forever, twined together at the core. He wanted to be over all of this, to have it well and full behind them, as distant as every other mortal thing in this existence. He and John and the endless nothing. That was what he wanted.

"You're both here because of my weakness. I'm not ignorant of that."

The riotous momentum of their bond had faded now that John had put some distance between them, drawing back the dark feelings into a softer tide. And he had room to think again, as himself.

He looked down at Irene. "They promised you your greatest desire, and in exchange, you had to raise Moriarty back to the land of the living, and ours.”

Irene nodded, toying distractedly with the rim of her glass. “He was right where you left him. In the cold and dark.”

He frowned at a sudden thought. "They brought him back. Why not her too?"

"It was as John said." Irene sighed, a distant and hollow look in her dark eyes. "There wasn't any coming back for her. Not again."

"I was certain I had ensured the same with our dear friend as well."

She looked up at him, and the dull gleam in her eyes had not changed. "Yes, well. We all make mistakes in matters of the heart. You wanted his sights off John. Your attachment made you sloppy. And so did mine."

There was a long silence, and neither moved. She gestured to the chair across from her. He sat, staring into the fire. Listening in the distance to the late revelry beneath the hanging moon.

"We never talked about it." Irene said. He didn't need her to clarify.

"Why start now?" He huffed. "So you can regain some modicum of power that you lost due to your own failures?"

"Pot." Irene gestured to herself, then to him. "Kettle. You're never going to get anywhere with him, or yourself, if you don't address what's really happening."

"Playing mother now? Boring."

"Defensive?" She countered. "Ordinary. John’s always going to run. It’s in his nature. Same for you, and for me as well. Don’t tell me otherwise."

Sherlock's lips thinned, as if he had eaten a lemon, but he said nothing.

"We're going to need to face this together. I need you at your best. The both of you."

"We were doing quite well until you came along."

"You're a terrible liar." Irene said, and they both shared a small, sad smile. The kind born from the deeper sorrows, of regret, failure, the irony of a hundred years of knowledge without learning a damn thing.

As he stared into the flames, the curls of red and yellow as the carbon and air was consumed, he turned the question over in his mind. The one he was most afraid to ask, and wanted desperately to be answered.

"Spit it out then," Irene hummed. "I can hear the gears turning."

She slid the pewter chalice towards him in invitation, and his mind flashed backwards, to Norway, to that dark manse, to the same offer that had led them all here, down the winding and painful path.

He shut his eyes, fingers rapping against the chair.

"Do you think we will survive this?" He asked, his words floating to the fireplace, to be caught in the grip of combustion, as if it might erase them as entirely as it did any other material.

"That's something you'll have to ask him."

"He won't give me a straight answer. One day is something. Tomorrow is different."

Irene stared at him a moment, one perfect bead of blood clinging to the moue of her bottom lip before she licked it away in reflex.

"Did he ever tell you about how it happened? The change."

"He's said enough. I can gather the rest myself."

"He didn't want it."

"No." Sherlock agreed.

"Well. If he didn't have trust issues before, one shudders to think of him after." Irene said pointedly, then tossed back the remnants of the chalice.

Sherlock watched her, his frown warped in the reflection.

*   *   *

John sat on the roof, legs dangling over the faux stone parapet. Everything was made so cheaply now, now that everyone could afford it. He gave it less than ten years before it was to be replaced by something worse. The dual nature of progress, moving forward and back at the same time.

He stared out over the dark water, the pleasure barges still floating on the surface, alight like miniature candles. He'd lost control back there, again. He hadn't meant to. There was something about Irene—but no, it wasn't really about her, though, was it? She was the vessel he could put his baggage on and cast out to sea without another thought. This went deeper than just her, than what she made him feel. It was about him and Sherlock, always, always about the two of them, stuck in this Catherine wheel of a relationship that bent their bones in turn until they couldn't recognize the forms of one another any longer. The hammer was coming for them long before Norway, long before Sherlock had allowed the telling blow, but there the momentum had crested into brutal finality, shattering something he had no idea was breakable.

He hadn't ever thought of getting married, of being someone's other half, of belonging. That notion had bled out of him long before his sire had found him in the desert, struck through outside Damascus by a rogue mamluk with a rusty spear and a cornered desire to survive, and left to the sun or the thirst or the blood loss—whichever took him first. He'd fell apart from his body, had already come to terms with his own mortality, when the shadow fell across him, and his life—and his death—became tangled together.

It wasn't something he liked thinking about. It was something that had changed him irrevocably. He was the same, and yet entirely different, and could not find a way, after all this time, to reconcile who he had been with what he had become. There had been no choice, no forewarning. It was pain, and then darkness, and then he had lost his soul entirely there, in the desert, in the cave he had been dragged to.

He was jealous of Sherlock, and Irene, and Harry, and anyone else who decided that this life had been something they wanted. He would never feel the same as they did. He carried it with him, locked deep inside, and it came out in the worst ways. His temper, his knee-jerk reflex to put himself on defense, his reckless, impulsive choices. Like Sherlock, he was well aware of his deepest flaws, but that didn't make it any more likely that he would change them. Perhaps it was time to start. Five hundred years was long enough. It should have been long enough.

He didn't look over as Sherlock joined him, sitting beside him and unfolding those great gangly legs to drop over the side. The two of them, perched on the edge of the world, ready to jump after the other into the night.

He reached out over their bond and followed it along the grain, the way one would when smoothing over soft velvet.

"I'm sorry." He said, turning his head to look over at his husband. The curls in Sherlock's hair were blowing back with the breeze, his face drawn and pensive as he watched the boats pass below them. "I shouldn't have left like that."

"Irene is your trigger point." Sherlock hummed. "It's only natural."

"No," John shook his head. "It's not her. It's never been about her. Not really."

Sherlock turned his head to look at him, his eyes dark in the night, holding the faint glow of the moon that hovered above them.

"It was my greatest mistake." He said lowly. "I don't want to keep talking about it."

"I know," John agreed. "I'm sorry to keep bringing it up."

"Stop apologizing." Sherlock huffed. "It makes me want to feel sorry for you."

John smiled, because there was no bite behind it.

"After I left you, in Norway," he began, "I didn't know where to go. I thought...maybe get off the continent. Go to England. Go to the New World."

"It's called America now, John. Surely you haven't forgotten."

"Do you know where I went first?"

Sherlock shook his head, and John knew that in those first few weeks, like minutes as everything settled to the bottom only to be shook up again, that Sherlock had been just as upset about it as he had been. Their nature had drawn them to different reactions. One to poppy blood, and the other to a different kind of damnation.

"I went to Damascus." He said simply, and felt a spike of something sharp and taut peak through their bond, almost like panic. "I found her. My sire."

"You spoke with her." Sherlock said, and it wasn't a question.

"I did."

"Did you get the answers you were looking for? After all this time?"

John snorted. "Of course not. She was just as unhelpful and as she ever was. And Harry was with her."

"Your sister has wonderful timing, as ever."

A moment of silence settled between them. People laughed below as they stumbled home, stumbled into one another, stumbled towards their beds, their desires, their distractions from the cold fact of mortality.

"It was only ever us, you know." John said, looking down into the crowd. "Most have hundreds of children. She has two."

"Forgive me if I don't see your sire as someone who should be sympathized with over their control of their impulses." Sherlock said, and John could hear him rolling his eyes. "Don't play at being her apologist. She doesn't deserve it."

"You're right."

"A monumental admission, John." Sherlock said, looking over to grin at him. "I thank you."

"That's why I buried her." John said cheerfully, watching the dark water as it lapped its way to shore. Sherlock's head whipped towards him.

"We've just been informed that the greatest threat to our happiness has been resurrected, and you're choosing now, of all times, to inform me that we may have another?"

"Moriarty was never the greatest threat to our happiness," John said, shaking his head. "I was. You were. We both are."

"Do forgive me if I see the creature that promised to end your existence as the more conspicuous danger than you yourself."

"You know what I mean."

And he did—it didn't need to be said.

"I never thought I'd be married, you know."

"Yes," Sherlock nodded, "You'd said as much the first time I proposed. Yet here we are."

"Here we are." John agreed.

"How long will she be buried?" His mate asked. A boat sailed through the lagoon, and they could hear the clink of crystal glasses, the pour of the wine, the vital heartbeats of all the living on board.

"At least a century. Probably two."

"Remind me to never get on your bad side."

"You?" John teased. "Never."

Sherlock reached out his hand, and he took it, the soft leather of their gloves resting between.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I'm sorry as well."

"You're forgiven, love." John said, and meant it.

"I have no intention of ever leaving you, John Watson. Not as long as you'll have me."

John smiled, wistful. "I wouldn't promise that if I were you. Things change."

Sherlock shook his head. "Not this. Not us."

He stared at his husband for a long moment, then looking into the water. "Maybe you're right."

"The circles of hell," Sherlock said suddenly, "are full of the damned who knew they were sinners, and never did anything differently." He glanced over at John to make sure he understood.

"We should be well enough ahead of them, don't you think? A few centuries, I'd wager."

"The punishment for gluttony is to lie in a bilious slush, and writhe in the feeling, ignorant of the suffering of others around you. Trapped forever in the acrid remnants of a moment of impulsive, selfish decision."

"Yes, I know. I remember when the damn thing was published."

"Do you think it's true?"

He knew Sherlock wasn't really asking about Dante, or the merit of any of his creative works. No, he was after something else.

"I think Alighieri had an active imagination. How can any of us know it's true?"

"We won't," Sherlock answered, "until we find out ourselves."

John stared at their joined hands for a moment, then raised his eyes to look at his mate, who was gazing into the darkness, his brow furrowed.

"I suppose we'll have to cross that off the list when we get to it, then, won't we?"

Sherlock's eyes darted to him. He smiled. "I suppose so."

Then his smile dropped, and his gaze sharpened. "John, you have to know how I—how I—"

"I know, sweetheart. You don't have to say it."

The grip on his hand tightened.

"You make it all worth it." Sherlock said lowly, eyes glinting in the moonlight. "I won't lose you. Not to her, not to Irene, not to Moriarty. Not to anyone."

"That choice, I think," John answered, "isn't really up to you, isn't it?"

Sherlock stared at him, and his lip trembled slightly. John smiled, and brought their joined hands up to steady it.

"I love you," he said. "And I have no intention of stopping. But, sometimes, you have to remember that I'm not like you. I don't see things the same way. I don't have the same history. I won't react the same way as you do. If you do that, I'll hold up my end too."

"I will." Sherlock answered solemnly.

"And I will as well," John replied back. "Now," he said, standing and dragging his mate up with him. "I think we've got ourselves a monster to catch."

*   *   *

"I sent Orso out for the first round." Irene said, pointing to the bold lines on the map that indicated the Jewish quarter. "A bit of strafing to get his attention, as it were."

"Why them?" Sherlock asked, eyes darting between the small red marks that indicated the victims: back alleys, sotoportegos, canal docks. Secret and lonely places to end their short existence.

"Why not?" She shrugged. "If it were women, people would talk, but do little else. Young men, in the prime of their life, fit and virile. That's more of his type, don't you agree?"

"None would do just as well." John said, his arms crossed as he stared down into the inked and divided city.

"At any rate, I only commanded the first wave. The rest that caught your eye weren't my doing."

Sherlock frowned, looking up at her. "A copycat?"

"More or less. I started to believe it was Moriarty almost from the beginning. He does love dramatic gestures."

"And this is supposed to what, declare his arrival?"

"It was _supposed_  to get you here, just as mine did for him. And it worked. Each one an x and o at the end of his love letter. Not particularly romantic."

"No," he agreed. "John's form of courtship was much more effective."

Although John's expression didn't change, he felt a slip of warmth sliver through their bond, unfurling slowly like a feather in a preening bird.

"What's he planning?" John asked, almost to himself, arms folded over his chest.

"Oh, nothing less than our ultimate demise," Sherlock answered. "Mine in particular. I imagine he's still quite cross that I tried to kill him, and thought I'd succeeded. Although which bothers him more is debatable."

"The  _mascherari_ is convening this evening. Do you think he'll show?"

Sherlock mulled over the possibilities, the probability that Moriarty would risk showing himself to a roomful of one of the most powerful covenants on earth just to feel superior. It wasn't unlikely.

"Knowing him, he'll have something else up his sleeve. Insurance."

Irene's eyes darted to John, and he knew all three had come to the same conclusion.

"I'll go," he said. "Draw him out. He wants me to get to you. He knows that's the easiest way."

"No." Sherlock growled. "You're not some carrot to dangle before the bit. I won't have it."

_I won't lose you now, now when we've just begun again._

"He knows you're here." Irene pointed out. "He'll be cautious about bait."

"I can handle myself." John said, raising his chin to stare at his mate, the two of them locked in a silent battle.

"That's not what I'm worried about." Sherlock responded lowly. "I'm worried over what will happen to you if he finds you. Nearly two hundred years of rest, to think and mull over about what I've done to him. Two centuries of planning on how to get back at me. Apart from returning the favour to me personally, you're his best chance."

"Do you have any other plans to smoke him out?" John challenged. "Or do you want more people to die while we wait for a better option?"

Sherlock stepped closer, their chests almost touching. He said nothing, but their bond trembled with a racking coldness, as if it were shivering, and he knew that deep down, his mate was afraid.

"I have no intention of losing you."

"You changed the wording."

"Yes, well. You made it quite clear how fallible the last one was."

"He won't kill me." John said quietly. "Not outright."

Sherlock frowned.

"There are other ways that you can be taken from me. He's never had trouble with creativity."

"I'm going to go tonight." John replied firmly. "Unless you have another idea rattling around in that brilliant head of yours."

"While this foreplay is absolutely enthralling, gentlemen," Irene droned, "we do have other things to think of right now. Namely, an actual plan."

"This isn't over." Sherlock said lowly, and their bond quavered like struck iron.

"No." John agreed, because his husband was right. They had much more to discuss between the two of them, and much more to sort out than one conversation could handle. But the time for that would be later, after this threat was behind them, after, when they had the time to realign themselves with one another again. It would take time, certainly. But, they had always had that.

The night wouldn't come fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait - life got in the way! And this story, as always, had more to be told than I intended, even if it was technically finished.


	4. Circle IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> "'Now we are sullen in this sable mire.'  
> This hymn do they keep gurgling in their throats,  
> For with unbroken words they cannot say it.
> 
> Thus we went circling round the filthy fen  
> A great arc 'twixt the dry bank and the swamp,  
> With eyes turned unto those who gorge the mire;
> 
> Unto the foot of a tower we came at last."
> 
> Dante's Inferno, Canto VII  
> 

The dawn was coming. Faint watery light began to bloom over the still waters of the canal, the lagoon, lightening the shades of the red round tiles of the rooftops, creeping towards the windows, still flung open and forgotten to be latched in the mindless revelry of the first night of carnevale.

He stepped over some of the night's latest casualties, propped against whatever wall they happened to fall against as they descended into a heavy, drunken sleep. They would wake in a few hours, when the sun came overhead, breath smelling of sour wine, which had done nothing but worsen their thirst.

If you were smart, you started rowing early, before the rest of the competition woke. If you were smarter than that, you only had the obligatory wine with dinner, and not a drop more. Someone always needed to get somewhere, even before the sun was up. He loaded his oar into the waiting boat and climbed in, unmooring it from the docks.

Lounging against the oar lock, he rolled a loose cigarette then lit it, spinning in a slow circle as the water carried him into the middle of the canal. He loved the city so early in the morning, all the babes still quiet in their cradles. He loved how silent she was, like a lady holding a secret behind her back, waiting for him to grab it.

Smoke hissed from his nostrils, and he took a deep breath of fresh morning air before righting himself against the boat, coming to a balanced stand at the helm. Years of living on the water had taught him how to keep his footing even in the roughest of waters. He grasped the rudder in his hands, and guided it to the nearest channel, still darkened by the light of the oil lamps.

As he passed beneath a bridge, he spotted a figure on the banks, cloaked in dark layers against the morning cold. It raised a hand, hailing him over. He steered to the side, and held the gondola still as the figure stepped in.

" _Dove_?" He asked, gliding the boat across the still waters.

The figure said something quietly, in English. It was a man, his voice raspy and harsh as if it hadn't been used in years. He didn't know much of the language, but he'd pick up a few of the basics from a traveller or two.

"Where to go?" He repeated.

"To see an old friend," the figure replied. He glanced over his shoulder. The man was bundled head to toe, a large black hat hiding his face from the sun, with a warm scarf wrapped thrice around his head. Only his eyes were visible, black eyes, as dark as the night.

"Address, _per favore_."

The boat passed under another bridge, the light from the oil lamps fading as they entered the darkness.

"Oh," the figure said, calm as the water. "I think here will do."

The rudder fell from his hands as he was suddenly grasped from behind, and he felt something sharp sting his neck. Rearing back, he grappled with the man as he struggled, feeling wetness run down to soak his shirtfront. The man tightened his hold, and he could feel—God, was that his  _teeth?_ —burrow further into his neck, his attacker's nose burrowing into the base of his throat.

He reached backwards for anything to grab that would help him throw off the madman biting at his jugular. The man's grip was strong, stronger than he looked, and his jaw was clamped tightly around his throat. God, mama would kill him for ruining the shirt. It was soaked in his blood. He could feel it flowing from him, strong as the river current.

Blindly, he grabbed the scarf and pulled, the way he used to lift the alley cats by the scruff of their neck. The material unwound in his hands, and his attacker let out a pained hiss as he dislodged himself from his neck, sending a fresh wash of blood down his shirt. In the chaos of the rocking boat, he could smell the unmistakable scent of smoke, burning flesh, almost like rancid pork.

He whirled around, prepared to face the thing which attacked him. Ready to fight to the death, for either of them.

But there was nothing. The boat swayed back and forth, and if it had not been for the blood running down his neck, the scarf bunched in his hands, he might have thought he was dreaming, had fallen asleep in the gentle lull of the boat the way he did at lunch.

Heart racing, he wrapped the scarf tightly around his neck to stem the blood, and picked up the oar once more. The nearest church was just past the next bridge. Part of him wanted to throw himself through its doors, turn to the Madonna for her protection, claim sanctuary against the demon that had just attacked him. He wanted his mother, for her arms to open and hold him, to tell him he was alright, that would live, but she was still sitting at home across the city, unaware that her son was bleeding out towards a sorry and lonely end. All he had now was himself. And the churches held something else, something more important. A different kind of protection.

The monsignor had been right. Dark things were indeed waiting in the shadows, waiting to snap them up, eat them alive. The _mascherari_ would have to be notified immediately.

* * *

Sherlock awoke to the sound of a loud knock at the door. He could hear the heartbeat of the man on the other side. From the way blood was rushing through the arteries, he had a good five years left before the hypertension claimed him.

He opened the door, and stared down at the messenger.

"The madame requests your immediate presence."

"Is the sun out?"

"It is currently just past five fifteen in the morning, sir."

He shut the door without another word. A morning call was worrisome. Something important had happened. Something that couldn't wait.

He sat on the edge of the bed. John was turned towards the wall, his shoulders slightly curving inwards as he slept.

"What does she want?" He asked.

Sherlock didn't respond, but instead reached over and covered his mate's shoulder blade with his bare hand. Through the heightened sensation, he tried to convey his innermost thoughts, the plan that was forming in the primordial depths, his hesitation at putting John venture in a most vulnerable and dangerous position.

He rubbed his thumb over the nape of John's neck and felt a shiver run through them both, a struck string that vibrated with potent motion. There was so much time, and yet so little of it. John wasn't to be treated as a pawn, and yet Moriarty was forcing them towards rash action by making his move so quickly. A vital rule of war: one never left a defended position unless they were capable of advancing safely. That only created opportunities for the enemy.

Wordlessly, John reached over his shoulder and took Sherlock's hand in his. A shimmering feeling, warm and golden like sunlight, passed through him. John was strong, and capable. Even clever, in his own way...

"Oi," he protested, rolling over to face him. "I'm sorry you're saddled with such a dullard," he teased, "But I'm not completely empty up here, thanks."

Sherlock's answering smile carried the weight of three hundred years of unaltered affection. "You may be an idiot, but you're no dullard."

"What praise." John huffed, rolling his eyes. "If you don't mind, try to say something nice on my epitaph to memorialize my mediocre mind."

Sherlock frowned.

"Do you really think you'll die before me?"

"I died over five centuries ago, genius. Now who's the slow one?" He grinned, but fell back at the solemn look on his husband's face.

"You're not to go before I do."

"Is that an order, old nan?"

"You're a solider. I hear you're good at taking those."

"You know," John sighed, sitting up. "You're going to have to starting learning how to accept that death is something of an inevitability, for all of us."

"No."

"No?"

"No." He shook his head, idly tracing a pattern above the scar the spear had left over half a millennia ago. It hadn't gone in cleanly. The shaft hadn't been well made, and had splintered with the force of running through John's body, leaving him pinned in the sand to bleed out. It would have taken at least an hour, perhaps longer. He'd have plenty to think about, staring into the blue sky as his life trickled away. The mamluk and the spear were both long disappeared into time, and all that was left of them was the man before him now, still bearing their scars. "You had time for your existential crisis while you were alive. I missed it entirely."

"Are you calling me old?"

"Well, speaking in technicalities, you are old. You're positively ancient."

"You're no youngling either, you great ponce."

That serious look was back in Sherlock's eyes, dark and humourless. He laid a hand over the scar, over where the heartbeat had once been, one he would never hear, and a great tide of feeling rose up beneath his touch. The glide of peaceful golden light upon the water, buoyant upon the darker feeling of sorrow.

"I've seen many things die. Many people. Some of them I even liked. I don't know what I would do if you became one of them."

"You got on fine before me."

Sherlock's eyes darted from the scar back up to his face. "And what about after?"

A knock at the door. John's gaze lingered on him for a moment before he moved away to answer it.

"I've changed my mind." Sherlock muttered absently, staring into nothing. "He has three years before his heart gives out completely."

* * *

Irene was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs, Orso standing obediently behind her.

"The mistress deigns to greet her lowly subjects." Sherlock intoned lowly. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

"He's attacked again." She said without preamble, turning to lead them down a dark corridor. John tensed as Orso followed behind him, closing off his route to the nearest exit.

"I suppose we'll add another to his tally, then. What does that make now, fifteen?"

"Fourteen." Irene corrected, reaching for the door. "This one's alive, and he's talking."

As she opened the door, a chaotic scene greeted them. Amid the standard hustle of a busy kitchen, a man was laid out on the table, his face nearly drained of the vibrantly pink undertones of the living. The corners of his lips, his hands, had a waxen, cold paleness to them, yet despite the bloody wound at his neck he was nevertheless arguing in rapid, vicious Italian with what Sherlock could only assume was the chef de cuisine. Gesturing wildly with one hand, he had a bloodied scarf clutched in the other.

"He gave you that?" Sherlock asked, stepping forward.

The man looked at him, almost shaking his head before thinking better of it. "I took it from him."

It was a calculated move, losing the scarf. Meant to seem sloppy. Perhaps it was, and two hundred years of undeath had put him out of practice. Or else the hunger may have gotten him. More data was needed.

He stood aside to let a cook shuffle past with a vat of boiling water, then pulled the bench aside, taking a seat at the table to observe a different, rather morbid type of feast.

"Tell me what he looked like."

The man's glance darted to John, who'd stepped closer to peer down at the wound.

"It's alright, he's a doctor."

The man swallowed, nodding in acquiescence as he allowed John to tilt his head back. The gesture of trust was surprising. He could be among their kind without fear. Interesting.

"It was still dark." He said, shutting his eyes as John prodded at the teeth marks. "I couldn't see him really. He had a dark cloak on, all black. A hat. This fucking scarf, wrapped to his eyeballs."

"You thought nothing of someone needing a taxi at four in the morning?"

"People always need a taxi. You have to start early if you want to make any money. I thought he was some leftover straggler heading home from a party."

John left his patient at the improvised bedside and said something quietly to the chef before shuffling around the room as he began to gather the required items. Sherlock, of course, heard it all.

"Did he say anything to you?"

Nico's eyes glazed for a moment as he thought, brow crinkling as he pressed the rag harder to his bloodied neck. "He said...he was going to see an old friend. He spoke English."

Sherlock's frown deepened. A kitchen servant handed John a brown bottle, and he knew his questions would have to wait.

"What's your name?" He asked. This man was about to go through a great deal of pain. He could at least offer him a simple courtesy.

"Nico."

"Nico." He nodded in acknowledgment. "A pleasure. I should warn you now, this is going to be quite painful for you. Perhaps fatal. Do you have anything to say before we start?"

The man nodded, hands folded over his stomach, oddly serene about his potentially impending demise. "Don't turn me into one of you. That's all."

"Would you rather I kill you now?" He asked. It wasn't a threat, but a mercy. If the man wanted to die, he had the option to do it quickly, without pain.

"I'd like to live, if it's all the same to you."

Sherlock nodded, and stepped back as John approached, carrying a makeshift medical kit of hot rags soaking in bowls of boiled water, needles, thread, the dark bottle.

"You might need this." He said, handing the bottle to Nico. "And make sure you drink a lot of it."

Nico unwound the cap and raised it in a toast. "Salute," he said, not without irony, and took a deep drink before nearly coughing it back out again as soon as he tasted it.

"No time for the quality stuff, I'm afraid." John said, pulling a rag from the steaming water to wipe away the streaks of blood covering the wound. "His aim wasn't as neat as it could've been. He missed the jugular, but there's still a fair bit of damage. I'm assuming you must have struggled. He nearly punctured your esophagus..."

Sherlock backed away as John went to work, melting into the still bustling kitchen as the workers prepared the daily breakfast. He took one long look at his mate, calm in the eye of the storm, focusing intently amid the sound of chopping carrots, the steam of the boiling water, the blood coating his hands, and he disappeared into the hall.

* * *

He found Irene in the main hall, sitting on a coach amid the quiet pile of sleeping forms. Some were still half-dressed, others had some semblance of decency to them. Many had fallen where they lay, too bloodrunk to wipe away the dried streaks at their mouths, the telltale marks of greed at their throats. Muted morning light was falling from the boarded windows high above, lining the streets of Venice.

"Quite the party." He noted, walking up to her as he observed the ruins of the night. "Are they always so hedonistic?"

"They're scared." She said, eyes darting over the prone forms before she turned to look up at him. "I frighten them."

"You've always been good at expediting the existential fears of the general populous."

He sat down beside her, watching as Orso meandered among the prone bodies, still dressed in his ridiculous fool's costume. There was something more than the eyes that bothered him, something deeply unsettling, but he hadn't identified it just yet.

"Is it you they're frightened of, or is it your..." He paused, not knowing what word exactly he should use.

"You can call him my son, if you want." Irene smiled ruefully. "I never thought I'd have children. And yet here he is. I've birthed a little creature that's all mine at last."

"How did it happen?"

Irene's smile faded, and a distant look came into her eyes, the same look of a war-weary soldier asked to relive the glory days of battle that was nothing more than an uncontrollable riot of fear and violence, death and blood. Nothing more than a brutal, merciless struggle towards survival. No more than the instinctual, reflexive grab for life.

"They waited until I settled in to ask the first time. Then every night after they asked. They don't make it seem like coercion, but they knew that I knew it was, and so they used a different approach each time. Most didn't work, except for one. But one was enough. A momentary weakness, and they had me."

"He listens to you. Why? What is he?"

"They're very superstitious, the khylsts. It has to be a moonless night. The grave has to be fresh. The rooster must be a cockerel, and its throat must be slit before dawn." She turned to look at him, and he understood.

"He isn't like us."

"He's like nothing else on this earth." Irene said, staring at him from across the room, and for a moment it was as if she were his mother, crowing over the uniqueness of her child, proud over something she had a part in making.

"He obeys me because I created him." She continued. "We've all had our fair share of death. It's one thing to kill someone, but to bring them back, resurrecting your own victim into being once more, that changes things. I picked him out, drained him dry, and put him to rest in that frozen grave until I dug him up and christened him again. No other hand has touched him. Orso, _inginocchiarsi_."

The fool dropped to his knees at the command, and Irene walked over, running a hand along the gauzy white fabric at his shoulder. She ran a hand through his dark hair, coming to rest at the ties of his mask, still contorted in straining, frozen laughter.

"Death makes them look smaller. They didn't tell about his eyes. Perhaps they didn't know. All their other attempts had failed at one point or another."

"Why you?"

She looked up at him, her fingers running over the hair of her creation, kneeling in obeisance. "I'm still figuring that out. Why me, and not another. I was vulnerable. Perhaps that's why. I was determined to get what I wanted. Maybe I was just foolish enough to be used. Despite what we are, we used to be like them, too." She tilted her chin, gesturing to the only humans in the room, a man and woman who had fallen asleep leaning against one another. Their heartbeats were low and matching, deep in the susurrus of sleep.

"We have the same desire to be loved, even if we'd like to be hated instead. Our hunger is gone, but we remember what it felt like, and fill it with other things." She stared at the couple, and he could see a faint watery line appear at the rim of her eyes. "I want Kate back. I'd have done anything if it meant she was here. Love is a mortal defect, and yet it stays with us all the same. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I still don't know how."

Sherlock stared at the sleeping couple. "They'll be dead and carted off to their graves like the rest come morning."

"It's morning now. And here they are, still alive. Perhaps your misanthropy needs an adjustment."

"Perhaps I should considering creating an undead creature to do my bidding because I'm afraid of looking at myself for what I am."

Irene's hand tightened in Orso's hair, yet he made no move to draw himself away. "Yes," she said, eyes narrowing. "Perhaps you should. Maybe John would acquiesce. Or perhaps you should go back to China until you've drowned yourself in all the sorry opium dens this world has to offer. Don't raise your hair like a cat every time the subject of love arises. We're all going to lose those we love most, that's what we've been doing for the past hundred years, it's what we will be doing for the next centuries to come, and John is no different from the rest. The fact that you love him isn't enough to change that. You say I cannot look my existence in the face? I say you're the coward, Sherlock Holmes. We both are. How's that for love?"

"Once again, Irene," John sighed as he came out of the shadows, "I ask that you not project your own relationship onto ours, even if Sherlock is being a tit about it."

Irene's eyes fell to his hands as he wiped the blood from them. "Is he alive?"

"You can't tell by which way the wind's blowing or the angle of my left eyebrow?" John frowned, busy cleaning the blood from under his nails. "He passed out halfway through. Should be fine in a few hours—"

Irene ignored him, rushing past towards the hall to the kitchen.

"I said a few _hours_ , Irene!" John called out after her. His eyes fell on the prone form of Orso, head bowed, still on his knees.

"Orso," Irene's voice called from the darkness, " _Vieni qui_."

Without raising his head, the fool stood, taking no care to scuff against the sleeping forms on the floor as he answered the call of his mistress, disappearing into the darkness where she waited.

"At least now we'll never have to wonder about her parenting skills." John huffed, expecting some sort of retort from his husband, who was still strangely silent.

He looked up and froze. The muted morning light that had escaped the improvised curtains was leaking through, and Sherlock was standing in the middle of the room beneath it, hands folded neatly behind his back, head tilted up. A strange expression had appeared on his face, the ecstasy of the angels looking heavenward.

"I think," he said calmly without opening his eyes, "that sunlight would be the way to go."

"What do you mean?"

"If you were to die. That's how I would kill myself. Sunlight. It should take, don't you think?"

"I'm not going to debate what's the most effective way for you to commit suicide after my hypothetical death."

"Why not?" He opened an eye to look over at him. "Would you want it to be slow?"

John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. There was still blood crusted in his cuticles.

"Yes," he said quietly, as he began to pace in a circle around his husband. "I want it to be slow. I want you to think of me as you burn and fall apart and suffer, alone." He paused, cocking his head as he continued to clean his hands. "No. You know what? I've changed my mind. I want it to be quick, over and done with, and you left to nothing but ashes, as if you were never here to begin with." His lips thinned as he frowned. "There is no way I can answer the question you're asking. In either scenario, I am not there to witness it, or play any role other than the ghost that follows you in your heart."

Sherlock turned his head to the side, staring at him down the bridge of his nose. "Reliable information tells me I don't have one."

"You don't, do you? Whatever's left of it, then." John stepped closer. "I know you. I know this," he said, raising a hand to wrap around Sherlock's neck, his thumb brushing over his throat. "I know you're afraid of losing it. Irene has been more than enough proof of what the aftermath looks like. If I die, and there's no coming back, I cannot order you not to follow me. I wouldn't be in any state to make orders after that, regardless. But I want you to live, as long as you can stand it."

"I don't know what I am without you." Sherlock said quietly. John smiled.

"Yes, you do."

Sherlock was silent for a moment.

"Sometimes," he swallowed thickly. "I feel as if I'm standing on the edge of a great pit, and I want to step into it. You are the only thing that stops me. Without you, I fall."

"Is that what scares you? The fall, or what's waiting at the bottom?"

"I can't take you with me. That's what I fear in the world. There isn't enough _time_ , John, to fill up with enough of you. And it will all turn to dust the moment you're gone."

Their bond was thrumming with the beginning stages of chemical reaction, as volatile compounds came into contact.

"I'm not a good person." He admitted plainly. "I never was, in either life. I'm selfish. I have no control when it comes to the things I want, and I want too much of you for myself. I want all of you, and that is the stone that I must force uphill each day, only to have it roll to the bottom. The task of loving you, needing you, will destroy me. I'm quite certain. But, I think, there are worse ways to go."

His hand came up to match John's, curving around his neck. "Moriarty will come out tonight. He knows what you are to me, and he'd be a fool not to exploit that. This morning proved that he's either out of practice or that we're playing into his hands perfectly. He's going to go after you first before anyone else. We have to be ready."

"You have a plan?"

"I have an idea. We'll need Irene's help."

The heart rate of the two humans began to rise towards waking in the natural rhythm of the morning hour. Some of the dark figures on the floor began to stir, yet neither of the two took their hands away, despite the risk of being caught in such an intimate moment, bare hands on each other, to be seen by anyone.

"I'll need you with me." Sherlock said.

"Then you have me."

He kissed him in the hall under the muted light of the morning, marking the moment, filing it away with the all of the others, all the kisses he had kept from fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago. It would join the rest, and, with any luck, would not mark the last of them.

"Are you ready?"

John pulled away and nodded, already beginning to put on the invisible armor of unemotional and dispassionate distance around his heart. He took his mate's hand in his.

"Lead the way, and I'll be beside you."

Somewhere in the distance, bells began to ring as the city began to wake. Tonight would be the breaking point. Tonight could be their end. They had but a handful of hours to come up with a plan to match one of the greatest and cruellest minds to ever exist.

They descended into the waiting darkness, the bells still knelling in the distance. He hoped that their ringing did not usher in their end. He hoped they might live to hear them once more. But he put the thoughts and hopes of tomorrow out of his mind.

Now wasn't the time for dreams. Now was time for battle.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! Originally, this was written to be a oneshot, but as it went on it became far too long, so I decided to break it into pieces.
> 
> This is a finished work, and will be updated every other Sunday.
> 
> Enjoy!


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